


The Ghost and Mr. Choi

by babyrubysoho



Category: Big Bang (Band), GTOP (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Not K-Pop Idols, Cute, Fluff and Angst, Ghost Sex, Halloween, Haunted Houses, M/M, Romance, Spooky
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-11-08
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:15:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 27,807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27300304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/babyrubysoho/pseuds/babyrubysoho
Summary: The minute he set foot in the grounds Seunghyun understood why his parents were acting so peculiar. He'd hoped it was just the stress of handling the final renovations on such a large house; he hadn’t imagined that it was because their new home, the product of months of painstaking work, was…wrong.*Seunghyun returns from a foreign internship in his final year of university to find a strange and unsettling presence in his family's new (old) house. He only hopes he can figure out what - orwho- it is and what it wants before someone gets hurt!*
Relationships: Choi Seunghyun | T.O.P./Kwon Jiyong | G-Dragon
Comments: 23
Kudos: 53





	1. The Boy on the Second Floor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Seunghyun gets the fright of his life - while his life changes forever.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A Halloween 2-parter for you! Like most of my spooky GTOP it starts vaguely creepy and gets fluffy ^^  
> Hope you enjoy!

The minute he set foot in the grounds Seunghyun understood why his parents were acting so peculiar. They’d been weird ever since he got back from Vienna: a week of furtive glances, hushed arguments, and his mom falling back into an old smoking habit on the sly. Seunghyun had hoped it was just the stress of handling the final renovations on such a large house – even with his mother’s expertise and his father’s handiness their new place hadn’t been ready as planned by the time their son came home. He’d _hoped_ it was that and not the budding signs of a divorce; he’d only been on his foreign internship six months, but a marriage could fall apart in that time, right? He hadn’t imagined that it was because their new house, the product of months of painstaking work, was… _wrong_.

“You, er…think we did okay?” asked Seunghyun’s dad as they shut the car doors and took a collective look at the place. It struck Seunghyun that for his father – who had been terminally enthusiastic about the project since its beginning – to even ask such a question merely served to confirm the odd air that radiated between his parents and the house in front of him.

“…It’s beautiful,” said Seunghyun absently. “I can’t believe it’s the same place, Mom!” He spoke with perfect honesty. After all, the new house wasn’t _new_ at all but a venerable hanok in Bukchon; his mother, an architect with a penchant for vintage, pegged it as mid-1920s, and it had only avoided the ‘historic home’ moniker because when they’d bought it it’d been a derelict. It sat at the edge of the famous hanok village in Seoul; in the first pictures his parents sent him it looked like the rest of the heritage-site neighborhood had disowned the house like an embarrassing member of the family, and had shuffled it off to stand by itself. Seunghyun had been surprised it was standing at all, and had been unable to conceal some youthful dismay that he might have to _live_ there, at least for another year until he graduated. But his mother had talent in spades and his dad was a practical man. They’d sunk all their spare capital into the restoration – and the result of their efforts was magnificent.

“I can’t quite believe it myself.” Seunghyun’s mother fidgeted with the keys while he and his father removed the suitcases from the car. “For a while I didn’t think we’d get it done at all.” She shrugged and smiled, pushed her untidy hair back. From the corner of his eye Seunghyun caught his dad exchanging a glance with her, a look of – what? A shared apprehension? A warning?

“Well, we did,” his dad reminded them in a jovial tone. “And better late than never. So let’s give the boy the grand tour!” Seunghyun nodded; he was dying to see inside. The moving vans had finished two days ago and his parents had been in and out arranging everything, but he hadn’t been permitted a peep ‘til it was perfect. He was, however, allowed to choose some designer furniture pieces, and he couldn’t wait to see if his intuition had been right about them. And yet in spite of his eagerness the three of them just stood there.

Seunghyun stared at the elegant hanok, its traditional façade temporized by modern touches, and wondered why his parents made no move to walk up the courtyard path and let him in. By the same token, why wasn’t _he_ moving? He inquired this of his feet with no reply. All he could think was how much the windows under the second-floor eaves looked like eyes.

He could sense more parental glances, an entire conversation taking place behind him, and the longer he admired the house the more he intuited what that silent discussion might be about: the fact that something here was not right.

“Well, we can’t stand about all day,” said his mother at last, grabbing one suitcase and wheeling it determinedly towards the door, keys raised as if they could ward off the evil eye. Seunghyun saw her square her jaw in the exact way he did when he had a difficult task ahead of him. Did she not _like_ the finished house? he wondered. Maybe she’d made a mistake in her plans, in the places where the hanok had had to be shored up or rebuilt; perhaps an angle was off or the proportions were slightly out, something subtle but enough to offend the family eye for aesthetics. Perhaps _that_ was why it felt uncomfortable to look at. And if that was the case, Seunghyun told himself, the feeling ought to disappear once he stepped inside. So he took a deep breath and followed his mother into the house.

* * *

That night Seunghyun sat in his spacious bedroom-slash-study under the eaves and tried to figure out if he’d been right. He approved of the house, its airy rooms and wide courtyard managing to look both retro and avant-garde. He approved of the European furniture he’d chosen and its placement. He approved of his rooms at the top of the stairs with their privacy and view of Bukchon – from the inside the windows didn’t look so much like they were staring. But still this feeling remained. Seunghyun’s rational side explained to the rest of him that the sensation of discomfort – that he was an intruder in some place he wasn’t meant to be – was natural. He’d never lived in such an old house before, not even in Vienna. His common sense further added that his parents were making this whole move feel so much weirder: his mom was currently smoking by the back wall, his dad had dropped a dish while making dinner – confusion in a new kitchen, he said, though it’d half looked like the dish had flung _itself_ to the floor – and they’d been muttering to each other every time Seunghyun’s back was turned. It was enough to make anyone twitchy.

“Seunghyun!” came his father’s voice from the foot of the stairs.

“Huh?”

“All right up there? You’re very quiet.”

“Just going to bed,” Seunghyun called, bemused and a little touched at being treated like a kid again.

“Call me if you want anything! And if you need to come down in the night, switch on the big light, okay? Don’t worry about waking us.”

“Er…okay. Why?” A pause, then:

“Don’t want you falling down the stairs! You’re not used to where everything is yet.”

What an odd thing to harp on, thought Seunghyun once his dad had cautioned him again before retreating. He shrugged and went back to arranging materials on twentieth-century Austrian furniture for his dissertation research. He was so absorbed in the beauty of the designs he’d photographed during his internship at the Imperial Collection that before he knew it two hours had passed and it was midnight. He changed and brushed his teeth in his own bathroom, then went to bed. The hanok village was quiet compared with other areas of Seoul, and it wasn’t long before he dropped off.

He was dreaming quite pleasantly of Daesung and his other friends, of meeting up with them at long last, inviting them to the house and throwing a party – in the dream his parents were marvelously tolerant of this and immediately offered up their wine collection. He sensed an easing of the loneliness that had followed him back here from Europe, and smiled in his sleep. It was as he chatted with dream-Daesung and Youngbae that he noticed there was another member of their student group sitting with them, peering at Seunghyun across the coffee table. Seunghyun couldn’t make the dream conjure his face clearly or put a name to him, but he seemed very much at home. He’d remember when he woke up, he supposed.

All of a sudden his eyes were open and he was staring at the ceiling of his new room. A sound, a small crash, had intruded on his nice mundane dream sufficiently to wake him and leave his limbs tense, his mind struggling into awareness. He hopped out of bed and trotted onto the landing: the sound had come from downstairs. A whole new set of worries and guesses as to his parents’ strange behavior rose up in the dark, as such thoughts tend to do: his mom or his dad had broken something, had been awake in the middle of the night and dropped something. Were the two of them fighting for real? Was one of them sick, taking medicine late and unable to hold on to their glass? Were they being _robbed_? The paranoia of the small hours hit him and he rushed for the stairs without thinking at all about his father’s earlier request.

A lit lamp in the first-floor hall was the only thing that saved him: as he was about to hit the top stair Seunghyun caught the dim outline of something gleaming in the middle of it. He jerked to a stop, whirled his arms furiously to stop himself toppling, and with a low curse slapped the landing light on. At the edge of the stair-tread sat a large glass marble, right where his bare foot would have fallen in the dark. Seunghyun crouched to look at it, registered a small shiver pass over him. His discomfort increased when he noted how his hand was shaking as he reached for it. The marble was smooth and chilly, clear with a twist of bright blue at its center like the iris of a pale eye. It occurred to Seunghyun that he’d never seen a marble in its native habitat before – who the hell played with them these days? – and he was regarding it with something akin to dismay when he heard his mom and dad hurry into the hall below.

“Honey?” His mother sounded breathless. “What is it? Did you need something?” Seunghyun remembered why he’d woken in the first place and jogged carefully downstairs.

“I heard a noise,” he said, and his own voice sounded strange to him. There was no mistaking the look his parents gave each other: a secret. “Something broke?” Slowly his father held out a hand to display a shallow cut in his palm, stemmed by a square of kitchen paper.

“I went to get a drink,” the older man said ruefully. “I’m all thumbs today: cracked the glass.” Even as he spoke Seunghyun knew he was lying. The idea of sickness, infirmity stabbed at him again. He gazed at his father almost desperately, trying to spot any sign of it, but the man’s square features seemed unchanged; only he was avoiding his son’s eyes. Seunghyun became aware that he was clenching his fist in anxiety – and then he remembered the marble.

“…This was on the stairs.” His parents quit looking furtively around and their stares snapped to the glass ball. “Good job I turned the light on like you said,” Seunghyun added, hoping to prompt them into saying something that made sense.

“Good job,” muttered his dad after a fraught minute. He swallowed.

“There’re all kinds of old things around the house,” his mother put in, wrapping her dressing-gown tighter about herself. “We turned up quite a collection while we were rebuilding – I’ve got a box of them somewhere.” Her voice was steady, but her eyes didn’t leave the marble. It was then that Seunghyun abandoned the idea of his parents being ill; their faces told him that much. This was…something else, something both less and more frightening. He didn’t know what it was yet; but it hadn’t existed before this house. Ergo, the house was causing it. “I’ll put it with the other stuff,” his mom said, and reached for the marble.

“Nah.” Instinctively Seunghyun closed his hand on the cold sphere. He wasn’t sure why, but he needed it: if nothing else, it was proof that he wasn’t imagining all this weirdness – and that they were experiencing whatever this was _together_. His mother and father sighed at each other; he gripped the pretty marble, fighting not to feel excluded. Then, with a self-consciousness shared amongst them that things were being kept from him, Seunghyun trudged back upstairs. All the way up he felt a new sensation: that not only had he become hyper-aware, but that something else had become aware of _him_ – as if that eye of a marble could see him. He shoved it under a pile of tshirts and went to bed. In his dreams that mysterious classmate was still watching him.

* * *

“Mom!” called Seunghyun on a sunny morning two days later. He switched the vacuum off and tried again. He had two full months before his senior year began in April, and had been roped in as housekeeper while his mother worked in her new home office. He did his chores without complaining, hoping that getting to know the house would dispel the lingering unease he’d been feeling since their first night here. There was still _something_ , but the bright weather, the underfloor heating and the real beauty of the hanok were helping it seem a little less foreboding. “Mom!” Seunghyun yelled for a third time.

“What is it?!” His mom looked as if she’d run from the other side of the house to the dining room; she glared around rather wildly before his raised eyebrows calmed her. Seunghyun gestured to the polished floorboards he’d bared when he pulled back the rug to clean under it.

“There’s a mark here. You think the moving guys did it?” It looked as though someone had spilled red wine on the boards and been unable to clear it all up; he’d guess it was about a bottle’s worth. He wouldn’t put it past the movers to try and hide that they’d broken something – it was an expensive mistake. His mother’s lips thinned; but, Seunghyun realized, she wasn’t surprised.

“…No,” she said slowly, as if unwilling. “It was always there. We found these boards in good condition, so I had them sanded down to get rid of the stains but…this one always seems to come back.”

“Damp?” Seunghyun suggested, staring at the faint maroon patch.

“Could be. The surveyor says no, but you can never tell with an antique like this.” She sounded rightly proud of the house and her fine work, and at the same time Seunghyun picked up a note of what could almost be distaste. “Just put the rug back, I wanted a carpet there anyway.”

“Say, Mom.” Seunghyun leaned on the vacuum handle and moved his toe pensively across the warm boards. “Was it hard, doing up this house?”

“Of course. It was just a shell. We had to have so many surveys done before I could even draw up the plans, then all the permissions we had to get…! It would have been far easier to knock it down and build a new one from scratch.” A low creaking from above them seemed to disapprove of this notion; Seunghyun caught his breath and so did she, until he remembered this _was_ an old house – it made noises all the time. Even so…

“And…nothing else happened before I came back? Nothing _weird_?” His mother sat down at the dining table and looked out into the courtyard, shaking her head. Avoiding his eyes. “What do you know about the history of the house?” pressed Seunghyun. “The Bukchon association must have _some_ idea.”

“It was occupied on and off, up until the Eighties,” his mom informed him, looking happier. “Empty since then. There doesn’t seem to be any particularly noteworthy history attached to it; it’s changed hands a lot, but it’s always been here. I thought it’d be such a shame if it was finally allowed to go to ruin.”

“You saved it.”

“We did.” She gave him a half-smile, perhaps wondering if she had been wise in that. Seunghyun nodded, casting an eye at the ceiling from whence the noise had come. Because there _was_ something in this house; he was almost sure of it now. And, if so, it ought to be grateful.

* * *

The thing that was in the house – or perhaps the house itself, Seunghyun couldn’t tell – became so clearly present to him that it was _impossible_ his parents couldn’t feel it. Over the next week he gained some inkling of what they must have gone through while trying to fix up the place: a slowly growing sense of attention, of being observed without pause. Small objects being moved from where he had left them in his absentmindedness, as if the hanok couldn’t bear mess. Seunghyun could see how it wore on his parents’ spirits, how it must have dawned on them as they worked that they weren’t the only sentient presences in the house. The occasional broken dish was just icing on a very unnerving cake.

Seunghyun had never been inclined to believe in the supernatural. He’d heard stories in Vienna, of course, interning at the museum; but they were just…quaint: murdered Knights Templar, mountains of skulls beneath the Cathedral. This was something else, the idea of being watched so strong that he started to feel uncomfortable taking a shower, never mind browsing porn or jerking off. There’d been no more dangerous tricks like the marble on the stairs – in hindsight that felt like a test and he kept the damn thing locked up in a drawer – but he could sense the house’s eyes on him.

“This place is kooky,” exclaimed Youngbae, once Seunghyun had got round to gathering his friends together and throwing a housewarming party. His parents _had_ let him at the wine, and his dad had left them food, so they’d felt very much like grown-ups sitting in the dining room talking about Art and Europe. Then the wine had kicked in, so now they were up in Seunghyun’s room, lolling on his bed and over the chairs and yapping like teenagers again.

“Kooky how?” asked Seunghyun earnestly. Could they feel it too? The alcohol was dulling his sense of the _presence_ , but then he’d drunk more than his friends – he got it now, why his mom had taken up smoking again. Youngbae snorted at his solemn expression.

“I just mean it’s cool, idiot. The design. Sure, it’s kind of in the sticks but at least you won’t have to live in halls this year. And in the summer – barbecue party!”

“All it needs is a pool,” added Daesung, hopeful. “There’s enough room out there. Your mom could design one, right?”

“Think that’s a bit optimistic,” Seunghyun told him, slinging a fond arm round his neck. God, it was good to have these guys back! His other classmates were milling around and it was nice to have the house full, but these were the two that mattered. Daesung beamed and thrust a half-empty bottle at him. As Seunghyun drunk he wondered where the _other_ boy was, the faceless one he’d been dreaming about. He peered around his bedroom but couldn’t recognize him in any of his classmates. He gave up and resumed his mission of drinking ‘til he couldn’t feel the eyes anymore.

Seunghyun knew he’d reached the maudlin stage when he found himself slurring:

“‘M gonna _miss_ you guys…after we graduate…”

“We’ve got another year to slog through first,” Daesung reminded him with a chuckle, propping his friend up with one shoulder. Seunghyun leaned against him dolefully.

“…Who knows what’s gonna _happen_?”

“Right, right,” said Youngbae on his other side. “I could get hit by a bus. Dae could win the lottery. _You_ could marry a pop star – you’re the only one with the looks for it.”

“Stupid,” mumbled Seunghyun, and gave him an affectionate slap. He hugged them both, giggling like an idiot. There was quiet for a bit, a comfortable silence surrounding the three of them as they lounged there in the dark. As it continued Seunghyun felt something begin to press against the fog of his inebriation, something not at all comfortable. Gradually he became aware of the house again, and somehow it felt _different_. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but he wasn’t too happy about it. He lifted the wine bottle and found it empty: no help there.

“…Hey,” said Youngbae, breaking the bubble of silence. “Can someone turn the light on?” He sounded young, like the kid Seunghyun had met at eighteen leaving home for the first time.

“You okay?”

“It got cold,” muttered Youngbae. Daesung sat up, removed his arm from around Seunghyun’s shoulders, and chafed his own biceps.

“Yeah…” His features looked tense now, small eyes as wide as they could go. Just then one of their classmates switched the ceiling light on. Daesung exhaled in a rush and practically babbled: “It’s late, hyung, we’d better get going.”

“Right.” Youngbae got to his feet, which started a general exodus towards the stairs. “Thanks for the housewarming, it’s an…interesting place. Next time we’ll go out for meat, yeah?”

“Dae,” said Seunghyun in a low voice as the others were putting on their shoes. “What d’you really think of the house?” He wasn’t sure why he asked – there were answers he didn’t want to hear. Daesung pursed his lips; he always found it difficult to lie.

“Feels like…it’s a place with a lot of history? I guess you’d say. Like it’s still all _here_ , in a way. But I s’pose that’s why your mom chose it.”

“Yeah.”

“Maybe have your dad look at the heating, though – it gets real cold at night.” And with that Daesung gave him a hug, and hurried after the others as though very anxious not to say another word.

Seunghyun waited up until his parents came home from their date, brooding on this new development in front of the TV: so it wasn’t just his family going mad – normal people could feel the wrongness too. Maybe they should get a pet, he thought, even a goldfish. Then there’d be some _reason_ to feel like he was being stared at. When he eventually went to bed he felt it again, twice as strong in his room as anywhere else. The house did feel different after the party: a darker ambience than before, anger and a little sadness – and all of it aimed at _him_.

He got into bed, placed his glasses on the bedside table, and snuggled beneath his blankets with the light on – the first time he’d done such a thing since childhood. It didn’t help, he couldn’t sleep. After a while he gave up and decided to read for a bit: he had a fascinating but very dry book about textile design that always did the trick. He reached for his glasses and missed. Sitting up, he saw they weren’t on the table; sighing, he fished around beside it, increasingly frantic, until at last he acknowledged the ridiculous truth: his glasses were gone. Something had taken them.

“Mom?” he said like a fool, grabbing for the remote chance that he _had_ fallen asleep and his mother had inexplicably come into his room and moved his things around. No answer, just a creak from his walk-in wardrobe door. Seunghyun leapt out of bed, squinting at it – things were a little fuzzy without his contacts – and backed up against the far wall. He couldn’t put it into words, but that cupboard radiated something that set his teeth chattering. It felt like _resentment_. But this was too ridiculous! Seunghyun grasped at another straw of rationality: maybe one of his classmates, one of the jokers, had hidden in there – maybe this was all a prank! They knew it was an old, mysterious house, a perfect setting to freak him out. He took a deep breath through his nose, clamped his lips together and strode forward, yanking the closet door open.

“All right, come out!” Now he felt even more of a moron, talking to empty air: there was no-one in the closet. He turned the light on and went in to make sure, checking behind the clothing rails and behind the pile of unpacked boxes. There was nothing; he was an idiot. Except for the glasses.

A movement of air in the bedroom behind him sounded almost like the tail end of a laugh. Seunghyun slammed the closet door with a shudder and made to sprint for his parents’ wing downstairs to have some elementary-school hysterics. But again he was arrested by a gleam that caught his eye: in the middle of the rumpled bedspread was the marble. _The_ marble, he knew: the one he had locked safely away. It sat there and glared at him with that new resentful air, and he could do nothing more than stare back and tremble.

“What is it?!” Seunghyun heard himself demand, finding himself closer to the edge of lunacy than he’d ever been. “What do you _want_?” He looked wildly around the room, speaking to the house as a whole. “You want us out, is that it? My parents _saved_ you,” he hissed in response to the sullen energy emanating from the marble. “The least you can do is leave us in peace!” He heard another creak from the rafters, a tone that sounded almost disbelieving – as if the house was exasperated by his challenge. “…Christ, what _are_ you?” he gasped. No reply. Seunghyun growled, hating how mad he must look, and snatched up the marble, throwing it away as if it might burn him. It struck the wall above his desk and fell out of sight. Without giving himself time to hesitate he took a running leap into bed and lay there with the covers up to his eyes, watching the room defiantly. As the adrenaline wore off his eyelids began to droop: he couldn’t deal with this tonight, anyway; he’d talk to his parents tomorrow. He’d find out how long they’d known this house was alive.

He was on the edge of dropping off when his mind registered a dim figure in the closet doorway: the slender outline of a boy. He blinked and it was gone; in another blink he was asleep.

* * *

Seunghyun woke to the realization that he’d asked the wrong question: not _what_ was attacking him, but _who_.

“You know this house is haunted, right?” he challenged his father while they were peeling potatoes.

“No it isn’t.” Pale and obstinate, the older man refused to look at him.

“It is.” Seunghyun pointed to the bruise on his dad’s forearm where he’d been hit by a falling stack of plates. “You’re not clumsy, Dad – there’s a ghost in here.”

“There’s no such thing as ghosts!” his father exclaimed, brandishing the peeler at his son. “Yes, the house has an odd energy – it’s affected your mother and I, as you see. But any reaction we have to it and any effects of those reactions are psychological. We already discussed this, son, while we were renovating: old places often have a kind of awareness; the Romans called it a _genius loci_. We just need to get used to it.”

“My glasses disappeared last night.”

“I’m pretty sure you were tipsy last night. They’ll turn up.”

“What about the marble?”

“One of us must have misplaced it – we’ve got a whole box of those old things.” Seunghyun exhaled in frustration; this couldn’t all have been the wine! Could it?

“Dad, I _saw_ something.”

“It’s our fault,” said his father implacably, jaw tight. “Our nerves were shot with the stress of this project and you’re picking up on it. Things will settle down again, you’ll see.”

“Whatever.” Seunghyun left before he could get scolded and retreated with his phone to the freezing courtyard, where the eerie glare felt less pressing. He was going to get to the bottom of this, with or without his parents’ help! He was going to find that boy.

The EMF meter Seunghyun bought broke the first time he used it – either that or the hanok shorted it out on purpose. He didn’t know how to read the damn thing anyway. He downloaded some apps instead, set his phone to record any inaudible frequencies and EVP; it didn’t pick up anything, not even the usual creaking of the house. He went so far as to look at an app version of a Ouija board, but was ultimately too chicken to try it. Though the apps in themselves were useless, Seunghyun found that in a way they _did_ work: he could sense the air of annoyance and disdain radiating from the walls every time he started one up, and the feeling of observation would intensify uncomfortably. He figured that meant the thing that looked like a boy was close by. It was incredibly freaky – he only tried it in the daytime, talking to the house like he’d seen on TV.

“If you’re here, make a sign!” he suggested. Nothing, to an almost provoking degree – but that night his glasses reappeared out of nowhere, and he rolled over and cracked them. “What are you?” he asked crossly. “Are you dead? Or were you never alive?” Yesterday’s newspaper materialized at his door the next morning, open at the obituaries; Seunghyun scanned them with a fascinated shiver, and found no clues. “Are you the one who keeps turning up in my dreams?” he inquired; he was almost certain it was. A chilly current of air blew past his ear. “I don’t mind,” he said, trying to keep his voice level; “I just wish you could make it less scary.”

Over the next week or so he grew accustomed to talking to the house, at least when he was out of earshot of his parents; _their_ experience didn’t seem to be improving much but he was less on edge himself, as if chatting to the invisible presence soothed it. Seunghyun knew he sounded crazy, but it was worth it to get a decent night’s sleep. The next time Daesung came round, however – reluctantly, in the middle of the day and wearing a very conspicuous cross around his neck – the atmosphere plummeted again.

“…I can’t handle it!” apologized Daesung after an hour, extracting himself from Seunghyun’s apologetic hug as the paper doors in the dining room rattled in their tracks. “Hyung, your place is too spooky! You should get it blessed.” Seunghyun took his arm entreatingly, to beg him to stick around and give some proper advice. He looked up just in time to see the light socket above them tear itself free of the plaster and drop the heavy lampshade down towards where they were sitting. He tugged Daesung out of the way, saving him from worse than a glancing blow to the shoulder.

“You know what?” he snapped at the house while his heart hammered in his chest and his best friend sprinted for the door. “ _Fuck_ you!” And he took to his heels after Daesung.

When his parents persuaded him back from his friend’s place two days later – or, more precisely, ordered him to get his shit together and start doing the housework again – Seunghyun stalked in with his jaw squared and found his bravado mirrored by the house: the atmosphere was lowering, sulky, and quite frankly he was worried for his safety. He clung to the banister coming down the stairs, one eye on all the heavy objects.

“It was a structural defect,” said his dad for the third time. “The shade was too heavy for the socket – my mistake. Try and relax, you’re stressing your mother out!” She was chain-smoking in the courtyard, not even trying to hide it anymore.

“ _Me_?” Seunghyun knew damn well what this was: she could feel the menace in the air as well as he could.

“Oh…go and do some gardening.” His father thrust a pair of gloves at him, new stress lines around his mouth. Seunghyun gave up and obeyed without complaint.

He stayed up late watching comedies on the projector downstairs, avoiding his rooms until he was pie-eyed and irritable enough that he didn’t care anymore about what might be waiting for him in the dark.

“Now look,” he told his closet, trembling hands on his hips, “if you keep this shit up I’m gonna get this damn house exorcised!” The door rattled – a draft or general disapproval, who could say? “I’m so tired,” said Seunghyun in a pleading tone; he felt like a madman. He sank down on his bed, muscles aching from being constantly poised for fear. “My mom and dad are losing it. We don’t wanna hurt you, house – I don’t even care if you make noises. Just…can’t you stop trying to scare us?” An unhelpful silence that did nothing to calm him. “Being _watched_ all the time,” he went on, scrubbing his hands over his face in exhaustion. “When I don’t know who’s doing it and whether they’re just curious or if they’re trying to kill me!” He glanced at his desk, where he knew the marble lay. “…I’m not trying to make you angry – I just don’t want to be afraid anymore.”

He waited for the next catastrophe, for that lowering atmosphere to lose its cool and explode with more unnatural phenomena. It didn’t happen. Almost disappointed at the anticlimax, Seunghyun tiredly put his pajamas on and climbed into bed. With a sigh he reached to switch off his lamp – and saw the boy in the closet doorway.

The translucent figure didn’t move, only stared at him from the shadows with a pair of dark narrow eyes that left Seunghyun in no doubt of what had been watching his family all this time. He froze, hand outstretched.

“…I can see you,” he breathed, his lips numb. “You know that, right?” The boy didn’t stir, didn’t even blink. He looked younger and smaller than Seunghyun and was wearing an old-fashioned school uniform with brass buttons and the sleeves rolled up to his elbows. Nothing in his features made him look like a threat – other than a complete lack of color and the fact that he was unmistakably _not real_. “Who _are_ you?” pressed Seunghyun, wondering if this entity could even hear him or if it was simply one of those historical echoes, the kind that haunts castles and battlefields. “Can you talk?” Silence. Seunghyun felt his hysteria rising, and was only just able to direct it away from sheer screaming panic into anger. “For fuck’s sake, kid!” he exploded, stumbling off the bed and striding forward belligerently. “If you won’t explain yourself then get _lost_! These fucking scare tactics – you’re pathetic! I don’t know if you’re a ghost, or the soul of this hellhouse or _what_ you are – just _leave us alone_!”

For an instant the boy’s eyes widened and he seemed to shrink from Seunghyun’s approach. The bigger man had zero clue what he would do if he actually got close enough to reach out for that terrifying little figure, but he couldn’t stop his suicidal forward motion. He was reprieved when at a distance of two feet the entity’s lips parted at last – and kept parting, until his mouth was as wide and black as a tunnel. A buzzing roar emerged that felt to Seunghyun as if it was swallowing him whole; he slammed his hands over his ears, shut his eyes tight and cried out hoarsely at the horror of it. Then everything went quiet: Seunghyun was left crouched on his floor with his arms over his head. When he finally dared to look up he was alone.

* * *

He eventually got to sleep on the sofa downstairs; he couldn’t close his eyes ‘til the sun came up. He did his chores like an automaton, saw in his parents’ glazed expressions that they’d had their own rough night of it. He was dying to ask if they’d seen the boy too, but he didn’t – he knew they wouldn’t tell him. He was in his room with the windows open so he could hear the sounds of the neighborhood, googling every compelling sighting of ‘intelligent hauntings’ he could find, when the entity appeared again. It was standing by the bed this time with one pale hand on his side table, so close to where Seunghyun had lost his glasses it couldn’t be a mistake. The boy opened his mouth and Seunghyun jerked backward so hard he almost fell off his chair.

“I’m sorry,” said the boy. “About last night. You hurt me.” Seunghyun righted himself and gawped at the apparition; he could see the bedframe through the boy’s torso. But the voice was _real_ , he was sure of it, not just in his head! “Won’t you talk to me again?” asked the figure tonelessly. Seunghyun shuddered.

“…I hurt _you_?” he managed faintly. “You’ve been trying to kill me!”

“I have not.” The boy had a quiet voice that sounded mostly human if not for a strange silvery echo.

“You put that marble on the stairs the first night we moved in!” Seunghyun reminded him, feeling giddy at the sheer unlikeliness of what was happening. He broke eye contact for a brief second to glare under the desk. “Whatever the fuck it went...” The boy squinted as if thinking hard, and Seunghyun’s heart skipped with a tremendous irregular lollop as the glass ball dropped out of the air onto his laptop, cracking the ‘j’ key.

“That was before,” explained the apparition, folding its small fingers together. “I didn’t know you then – I didn’t like you.” Seunghyun edged away from the marble, then screwed up his face as his beleaguered brain registered that last comment.

“You like me _now_?” The boy pursed his lips. “You’ve got a fucking funny way of showing it,” said Seunghyun hotly. “Scaring my friends, watching me like you resent me even breathing!”

“I was jealous,” said the boy, as if it was just that simple. Seunghyun’s jaw dropped. “You stopped paying attention to me and started talking to _them_.” He sat down on the bed, making no indent, and ran his spectral hand across the covers. “You could touch them; you were warm with them.”

“…Jealous,” parroted Seunghyun; he wanted to laugh but restrained himself – he felt that would be the beginning of a complete mental breakdown. Instead he shook his head to clear it – the apparition was still there – and tried to make the best of this…well, ‘situation’ hardly covered it. “What _are_ you?” he said for the umpteenth time. “Are you…the house?”

“No. But it _is_ my house.”

“That’s why you’ve been freaking out my parents all this time?”

“How would you like it?” asked the boy. “Having strange people tramping all over _your_ home.”

“Your home…did you live here?” Seunghyun probed eagerly. “Are you a ghost?!” He bit his lip, wondering if it was a faux pas to use that word – the last thing he wanted was to make the boy mad again, god knew what he was capable of! “Spirit. Whatever,” he added. The apparition didn’t look offended.

“I suppose so.” He shrugged his narrow shoulders. “I died here, anyway.” Seunghyun only just managed to stop himself blurting out an appalled ‘how?!’ – that surely _would_ be rude. The boy didn’t look like he would be forthcoming on that point, so Seunghyun tucked his curiosity away.

“Then…what made you _like_ me? If you don’t want people in the house?”

“You talked to me,” said the boy. “No-one’s ever really _talked_ to me, not since the day I died.” He gave Seunghyun a look, the vast sensation of attention that had been prickling at the back of his neck since he moved in. “Certainly not anyone polite.”

“…You were _lonely_.”

“No!” exclaimed the boy, and the window panes rattled. “I don’t like people. But I liked watching _you_ – playing with your strange toys, looking at your pretty art. You seemed alone too. Then those other boys were with you, and…”

“Jealous,” finished Seunghyun, still incredulous.

“Yes. I don’t know why.” The boy wriggled a little, then crossed his legs and sat still. “Just…I started to think what it would be like if someone could _see_ me – if I could talk with someone the way you talked with _them_. But I didn’t think I ought to, and it made me cross. And then you called me pathetic.”

“Cross? That’s an understatement – you almost bashed Dae’s head in with that lampshade!”

“Please don’t be angry,” said the ghost. “It upsets me.” Seunghyun shivered.

“Trust me, that’s the _last_ thing I want.” He leaned his elbows on the back of his desk chair and stared at the boy, sitting there prim and contained like a small cat, if cats were monochrome and completely see-through. “What do _you_ want?” Seunghyun asked cautiously. “Do you still want us out of this house?” The boy pursed his lips again; his face beneath its short dark hair was rather expressive, and Seunghyun watched it closely for any warning signs of a change in mood.

“Probably,” admitted the spirit. “I don’t really like _change_ ; it reminds me how long I’ve been here.”

“How long?!”

“What year is it?”

“2018,” Seunghyun informed him. If the boy could have gone any paler Seunghyun thought he would.

“The twenty-first century already? Ah. Then…” A pause while the kid counted on his fingers. “Eighty-four years.”

“Fuck,” said Seunghyun eloquently.

“I lose track,” replied the boy, while the room took on a decidedly melancholy air. “The last time anyone tried to live here they had big cars and big telephones and big hair – loud people. I didn’t like them.”

“The Eighties,” put in Seunghyun, mouth hanging open. “And in all that time…you never spoke with anyone?”

“Oh, I’ve screamed at people.” The boy still sounded sad. “You know, to make them go away. And sometimes they come in and shout at the house; but not as how you’d say _communication_.”

“And so…”

“And so that’s what I want.” The ghost perked up and gave Seunghyun a smile that was equal parts sweet and petrifying. “Before I finally kick you all out: I want to try making a friend.”

“I…” Seunghyun swallowed with difficulty. The marble on his keyboard stared at him, reminding him of the unbelievable situation he was in and of what this creature could do to him. The boy was staring at him too, wistful and at the same time laser-focused. “All right,” he breathed, condemning himself. “We can try to be _friends_.” The small figure seemed to light up, literally light up from within, becoming more solid and present. Seunghyun found himself already exhausted from the mental effort of wrapping his head around the evening’s events, but he summoned up a smile that was only part grimace and aimed it at the dead boy. “My name’s Choi Seunghyun. Who’re you?” The spirit smiled back, gave him an oddly correct and old-fashioned bow, and said in that silvery voice:

“Kwon Jiyong.”

* * *

“…Hey,” mumbled Seunghyun into his duvet, having retired to his bed after lunch to nap; he was so tired he’d fallen right over the vacuum cord onto the kitchen floor, causing his mom to rush in and frantically demand if he was hurt; it was obvious she thought something paranormal had happened again. “Kid – are you here?” He didn’t need to ask: he could feel the unmistakable stare.

“I’m not a kid,” said Kwon Jiyong. Seunghyun looked around wildly but there was nothing there, just the disembodied voice. “I’m seventeen!”

“Sorry.” He got chills again, knowing he hadn’t dreamed it all.

“I’ve been seventeen for eighty years, so technically I’m older than your grandfather.”

“Why can’t I see you?” asked Seunghyun, setting that thought aside.

“After all this time it feels weird to have someone look at me.”

“Join the club. If you have to stare, can’t you make it less obvious? It’s like it’s got _weight_ to it.”

“I can’t help that,” came Jiyong’s voice. “But if it makes you feel better…” And he faded into existence on the other side of the bedroom. “There. Just…don’t look at me like I’m a freak of nature.” Seunghyun supposed ‘better’ was a relative term; the ghost was gazing at him avidly, as if he hadn’t quite made up his mind whether he ought to be chatting with the human or driving him insane.

“…Hey,” said Seunghyun, feeling stupid. “What’re you up to?”

“Up to?” Jiyong’s translucent features looked puzzled.

“What’ve you been doing?” He couldn’t think of anything sensible to say that wasn’t a metaphysical question about the nature of the spirit’s existence – which he didn’t feel up to right now – so was forced to settle for small talk.

“I didn’t bother your parents, if that’s what you mean. So long as you’re polite to me, I’ll be polite to _them_.” Jiyong’s straight nose wrinkled at the thought of Seunghyun’s mother and father, so Seunghyun hurried on before the boy remembered how much he disliked their meddling with his home.

“I wasn’t accusing you of anything! I was just asking…what you do all day, I guess.”

“Watch you.” Seunghyun shivered and burrowed deeper under the duvet.

“All _day_?” he said incredulously. Knowing that the sense of being observed had a sentient mind behind it didn’t make him feel better at all. Jiyong shrugged, appearing to lean against the wall without having any weight to put on it; even lolling with his sleeves rolled up he looked neat and self-contained.

“Now, yes.”

“But before we came,” Seunghyun went on. “Whenever the house was empty – what did you _do_ all those years?” There was a thoughtful pause.

“Nothing,” said Jiyong. “Without humans around I just…exist. No awareness, no memories.” He pressed his lips together. “No form. Just peace.” Seunghyun couldn’t begin to imagine it; it sounded horrible. “I’m in every part of this house,” the boy explained, and without warning vanished, only his voice remaining. “The walls, the foundations, everywhere – it’s so soothing, you’ve no idea.” The bigger man sat up.

“Is your, er…” Seunghyun grimaced. “Is your _body_ still in here?”

“No,” said the ghost coldly. The bigger man nodded, relieved to hear it. A further thought struck him:

“Wait, so…if I reached out and touched the wall, would you _feel_ me?”

“Not in the way you mean,” came the voice with its light echo. “I told you, I’m formless when I’m like this. But I can sense when something changes in the house: I know when _people_ come in.” He reappeared at the end of the bed, mouth curling up as Seunghyun jumped. “It’s like being rudely awakened from a dreamless sleep, and I don’t _like_ it: I remember who I am, where I am. And my memories come back.” The aura of the room began to darken around them; with a quick shudder Seunghyun blurted out another question.

“What d’you usually do when people come in?!”

“Depends,” Jiyong told him with another wicked smile. “If they’re just homeless or – what d’you call them, urban explorers? – I fill the house with my mood.” Seunghyun nodded: he had felt it. “They tend to leave pretty fast. But when someone tries to actually move in I have to get a bit creative.”

“You mean hurting people.”

“Scaring them, anyway.” Jiyong sank down on the edge of the bed, huffing out a small laugh as Seunghyun scrambled back towards the headboard. “The usual stuff: moving things, stealing stuff, making weird noises, shaking the house. And if they’re _persistent_ – like you people – I’ll go further.”

“The marble,” Seunghyun muttered. The ghost of a territorial teenager; it was hard to picture anything more dangerous. “Have you ever killed anyone?!”

“No. But I broke a man’s hip on the stairs…oh, a long time ago. He wasn’t as observant as you – stupid old sod was trying to make _me_ leave with some mumbo-jumbo. They carted him off instead! I think the family moved out that night,” Jiyong told him, radiating satisfaction. “But if they hadn’t got the message…well. I would do it, if that was what it took.”

“You hate people that much?”

“People don’t _want_ me here,” exclaimed the boy. “They want to sterilize this place – my _home_! I’ve got a right to defend myself.”

“But that’s not what _we’re_ trying to do; we’re trying to preserve this house,” Seunghyun told him urgently. Jiyong narrowed his eyes, evidently unconvinced. “The council was talking about demolition! So please: lay off my mom and dad, you’ve turned them completely neurotic!”

“Hmm,” said Jiyong. He cocked his head, and a second later Seunghyun heard his father’s voice outside the door.

“Son? Are you alright? Is there someone else there?” He sounded about as paranoid as a haunted man could be.

“I’m on the phone!” yelled Seunghyun, fumbling for his Galaxy and waving it around like a prat. “Talking to Dae!”

“Oh,” said his dad. “I thought I heard…oh, well.” Seunghyun heard him retreat carefully down the stairs. He heaved a sigh, and when he looked round Jiyong had vanished.

“That wasn’t very convincing,” said the boy’s voice; it sounded as if it was sniggering.

“Didn’t have a lot of time to think!” retorted Seunghyun.

“You don’t even have a telephone up here.” Seunghyun waved the cell at him. “That’s not a telephone,” replied Jiyong. “Where’s the cord? Where’s the antenna?” Abruptly Seunghyun wanted to snigger too: of course, Jiyong wouldn’t have seen any new technology since the 1980s!

“It’s a ‘smart phone’.”

“Show me!” Without even a pause Seunghyun felt Jiyong’s presence gather behind him, a stirring of air at the back of his neck that made the hairs stand on end; he could tell the boy was peering over his shoulder.

“I’ll show you whatever you like,” Seunghyun promised after a gulp. “ _If_ you promise to behave yourself.”

“I’ll be good,” said that silvery voice. Seunghyun exhaled shakily, and the voice added: “Just don’t provoke me.” Seunghyun shut his eyes.

* * *

In the days that followed Seunghyun was under observation constantly; seen or unseen, Jiyong watched him. With growing frequency the little ghost asked questions or put in observations about ‘modern life’, sometimes during their face-to-face conversations, sometimes as an invisible whisper in his ear – usually at the most inconvenient moments when there were other people in the room. His parents, their worries about the house eased by Jiyong’s good behavior, had started turning their paranoia onto _him_ ; he was convinced they thought he was mad.

“Couldn’t you, like, make a list and save all this stuff up?” suggested Seunghyun one night while he and Jiyong were talking. “I _know_ you can pick up a pen.”

“Certainly can.” A biro flew off his desk, across the room, and smacked him in the forehead. Jiyong, sitting cross-legged and weightless on the bed, gave him a small smile.

“Yeah, well, it’s getting embarrassing.” Seunghyun had been doing the ironing that morning when Jiyong’s voice had begun murmuring ticklish queries about twenty-first-century underwear preferences in his ear. Seunghyun had jumped, blushed, and burned himself in that order, and his parents had spent the rest of the day whispering about him.

“But if I don’t ask you questions,” countered Jiyong, “how am I supposed to get to know you? You never ask _me_ anything.” And he was right, Seunghyun hadn’t, not since their first conversation: the bigger man saw questioning a ghost as something of a minefield, because everything he wanted to ask was either a mind-fuck or potentially offensive. He hadn’t forgotten Jiyong’s warning and had no desire to see him ‘provoked’.

“You said you like it when you have no memories,” he reminded the boy carefully. “You said having people around brings them back. I figured you didn’t want to talk about the past.”

“I don’t mind you asking,” said Jiyong. “So long as you don’t gossip about me with anyone.” He tossed his head, black hair moving in a way living people’s couldn’t; Seunghyun wondered if he even remembered what it felt like to have a body. “If I don’t want to answer, I won’t.”

“Okay.” Seunghyun tapped his fingers on his knee and tried to come up with something innocuous. “What year were you born?”

“1917.”

“In Seoul?”

“Yes. Only we were meant to call it Keijo.”

“…Right!” Jiyong had been born and raised in the Occupation, thought Seunghyun, his mind already slightly blown. What wouldn’t his history teacher give for an hour with this kid! “Did you have to learn Japanese?” he asked.

“Of course. I wasn’t very good at it, but the teacher mostly ignored me – no-one expected me to be smart.”

“Did you hate it?” Seunghyun probed in fascination. “Living like that?”

“Like what?” Jiyong flapped a hand. “Oh, the Japanese. Not really; it was all I knew. And I was sort of shielded from it most of the time.”

“You were from an important family?” said Seunghyun, thinking about the size of the hanok. Jiyong pulled a face; perhaps he was so expressive because he’d forgotten where normal human expressions were supposed to end, but in any case the effect was strangely pleasant. “Did you grow up in this house?”

“No. Just the last two years. I lived here with my mother.” Jiyong seemed to sigh. “We weren’t anyone important – not in the way you mean.”

“How about your dad?”

“I never knew my father,” said the boy, waving his hand as Seunghyun formed an apology. “We lived with my mother’s lovers; _they_ were usually important.”

“…Oh.”

“Except when we didn’t,” Jiyong went on calmly, as if eighty years of being dead had knocked the sting out of being the child of a – what was the word? – a _kisaeng_. “Then we were poor. But mostly we were pampered.” He gave the ceiling an ambivalent look. “This was the nicest house we ever lived in – and with the richest man.”

“Was he Japanese?”

“No. But he had a lot of connections; he was very highly placed, at least that’s what they told me. And my mother had a motor-car, and fancy clothes, and I went to that rich-kid academy.” Jiyong shot the rafters a wry smile. “Not that it did me much good.”

“What was that like?” Seunghyun rested his chin in his hand, a window onto a different era opening up in front of him in the shape of this unearthly creature.

“Depended on the man,” said Jiyong slowly. “They housed me and clothed me and schooled me because of my mother, but it was her they were doing it for – it was her they wanted. She was really beautiful,” he told Jiyong, very serious.

“I believe it.” If this was Jiyong’s true appearance, as he’d been in life, Seunghyun supposed he must have carried a good bit of his mother in his features. If it wasn’t so constantly freaky to look at him it might be a very sweet face.

“Other than that they either ignored me or indulged me so they could stay on her good side. The last guy I remember best because I was older then. I knew I was in his way, it would’ve been far more convenient for him if I hadn’t been around at all. Sometimes he snapped at me, but he paid for everything; he even said I could call him ‘Father’.”

“Did you?”

“Once or twice. It felt weird. And then later…” Jiyong shook his head and fell silent. Seunghyun by now was quite attuned to the shifts in Jiyong’s mood: the air in the room changed palpably. So he switched to a less awkward topic, one he’d been dying to ask about.

“Tell me what you remember about the house when you and your mom lived here: the furniture, the designs, the clothes!” Jiyong brightened – he’d expressed interest in Seunghyun’s research materials and had an obvious eye for pretty things – and began to describe a different way of life.

By the time he’d talked himself out Jiyong had drifted up the bed and was sitting beside Seunghyun against the headboard. Seunghyun had stiffened up initially – Jiyong created a slight physical chill, quite apart from the psychological weirdness of sharing a seat with a ghost – but relaxed as the boy chattered about the luxuries only the elite of the 1930s could experience. He felt very tired; he could almost sleep like this, listening to that ghostly voice describe his mother’s wardrobe.

“Say, Jiyong,” he murmured, drawing the bedclothes up higher against the supernatural chill – they went right through Jiyong, who didn’t seem to notice. “Can I ask you something personal? You don’t have to answer.”

“I just described my mother’s underwear cabinet,” Jiyong told him with a laugh. “I guess you can.” Seunghyun took a breath and looked him in the eye.

“How did you die?”

Seventeen: even in those days it was tragically young. And the boy had been rich, it was unlikely to have been poverty-related. Seunghyun had been wondering since the first night they spoke; he’d been picturing consumption or another of those ‘romantic’ wasting illnesses you read about in period novels; or maybe an accident, the medicine of the time so limited they’d been unable to save him. But he needed to know, if for nothing else than to stop his mind drawing Jiyong as one of the pathetic, historic spooks with a legendary demise. Jiyong turned a little more see-through; for a long moment he kept Seunghyun’s gaze while his fine jaw firmed. Almost defiantly he opened his mouth and announced:

“I was murdered.” Then he vanished.

* * *

“Jiyong?” called Seunghyun softly, so as not to alert his parents. He called to him every morning, afternoon, and evening – and got no reply. Since Jiyong’s confession he’d seen neither hide nor hair of his ghost – Seunghyun had begun to think of him as a ‘friend’, but now didn’t dare – and could only tell he was in the house at all by the usual sensation of being observed. He’d spent several days braced for a resumption of Jiyong’s angry efforts to drive them away: he had a good reason now, didn’t he? But there had been nothing; no marbles, no smashed dishes or bones, no stolen spectacles. It was as if the spirit was so mortified – if in fact you could describe a dead boy that way – by what he had told Seunghyun that he could no longer bear to communicate. Seunghyun pitied him from the bottom of his heart.

The house felt so ‘normal’ for so long that Seunghyun began to resign himself to living in what he’d always hoped for: a beautiful, ordinary home. His parents cheered up while he grew more gloomy, more regretful that he had pushed Jiyong to open up for the sake of his own curiosity. He almost wished Jiyong _would_ start some poltergeist activity. Eventually, however, his mood rose and the constant tiredness he associated with the stress of talking to a spirit dropped away. He didn’t give up greeting Jiyong in the morning but he _did_ stop hoping for a reply. Finally, as the weather grew milder, he invited his classmates over for a barbecue party.

Youngbae brought girls. He always did; he had more genuine female friends than anyone Seunghyun knew: the combination of sweetness, politeness and muscles was a powerful attraction. Naturally Seunghyun wasn’t complaining, and it put his rowdier classmates on their best behavior; suddenly everyone wanted to show off their barbecuing skills and wine knowledge. Daesung lamented again that Seunghyun had no pool.

“I could’ve shown them my abs.”

“Show them anyway.” Seunghyun aimed the tongs at Youngbae. “He’s got his shirt off already.”

“For no reason – and it’s bloody freezing!” It was March, a mild day, but Seunghyun agreed: if you were displaying your pecs at this time of the year without the excuse of going swimming it was probably instinctive. He flipped a burger, and found himself having a nice time. It was bright and sunny, his friends were having fun, and one of the young women turned out to be in his history of aesthetics lecture. She was lolling in one of the reclining chairs he had picked out, watching him and Dae cook and occasionally putting in a word. Seunghyun flipped the next burger higher, dropped it on the ground, and coughed; she laughed, a pleasant, thoroughly human laugh with no silver in it. He grinned sheepishly. “I’m gonna go get more drinks,” said Daesung in a conspiratorial tone, giving Seunghyun an encouraging neck-hug. “Why don’t you two get acquainted properly?” Seunghyun elbowed him, glancing at the young woman and her friends; she was smiling at him.

“You don’t mind?” he asked. What he really meant was whether Daesung was comfortable entering the house – he’d not been in since they all arrived, making himself comfortable in the courtyard and organizing the barbecue setup instead.

“Actually,” said Daesung, “I think I can handle it. I dunno…something feels different than before. Lighter, somehow.” He squared his shoulders and marched off. Seunghyun sighed: he supposed Jiyong really had retreated from human contact. He ought to be grateful, for the sake of his party. But he missed him.

Things went swimmingly for another two hours, probably a first in this particular house. Everyone was tipsy but not bacchanalian, and his classmates had managed to go use the bathroom without being haunted in it. Seunghyun had left the cooking to someone better and was sitting in a deckchair next to Jiyeon, having a lively discussion about Dadaism. Her taste was very different from his but she knew her stuff – and she was certainly pretty. Every so often Daesung would pass by and thrust drinks at them, and Seunghyun was nothing loth: she’d edged her chair closer. When he plucked up the courage to put a hand on her shoulder she didn’t retreat. She was warm and smart and smelled good. Seunghyun sighed happily.

“Oops,” called Youngbae from closer to the house, where he was walking on his hands to entertain his friends. “It’s getting _windy_.” Seunghyun glanced up: the sky was blue, clouds moving sedately across it, but Youngbae was right: out of nowhere a gust hit him hard, getting dirt in his eyes and whipping Jiyeon’s hair about her face. She laughed. Seunghyun didn’t: he had a _feeling_ , a change in ambience so familiar to him that he was filled with joint dismay and anticipation. He looked towards the house; Daesung caught his eye, and his expression was a picture.

“Shit!” yelped someone, cut off as another slap of wind hit the courtyard. Before Seunghyun could move the metal barbecue flipped over, scattering hotdogs and students as it barreled in his direction. Jiyeon leapt aside with a shriek, but he wasn’t as fast: one of the barbecue’s legs caught him a glancing blow to the temple. He sat down abruptly, giddy, and saw his party in pandemonium.

“You okay?!” cried Daesung, his face white and teeth visibly chattering. Seunghyun nodded; he could feel himself bleeding but it didn’t seem to be bad. “We’re getting the hell out of here!” his friend announced. This would be it, Seunghyun knew, the decisive moment: Daesung wouldn’t set foot in this house again. “C’mon, you can crash at my place.” Seunghyun looked up at the hanok, at its windows like eyes, and felt both terrified and relieved.

“It’s okay, Dae. I’ve got it under control.”

“You obviously don’t! You need a priest in here before you even _try_ staying another night! Come on, call your folks – they can find a hotel.”

“No,” said Seunghyun firmly. “You go on, get them all out. I’ll be fine.” Daesung gave him a mournful look, then sighed at his stubbornness.

“Call me tonight. And in the morning! And anytime if you need help.” Seunghyun didn’t think that would improve Jiyong’s mood at all, but he nodded and shooed Daesung along with the others. Soon he was alone in the windswept courtyard. Well. Not _alone_ ; at least he hoped not.

“Jiyong!” called Seunghyun, pounding through the house. “You can calm down now!” he managed, out of breath as he took the stairs two at a time to emerge in his bedroom; his head was spinning from wine and a possible concussion. “I sent them away.” He wasn’t sure exactly what had angered the ghost enough that he’d broken his silent spell, but he thought he might guess. “It’s just you and me,” he said more softly; and a minute later Jiyong materialized. The boy stared at him. He didn’t appear at all remorseful, thought Seunghyun as he dabbed at his cut forehead with a tissue; but he looked _extremely_ upset. “You could’ve brained me, you know,” Seunghyun told him as gently as he could, gesturing to his temple. He wasn’t sure if Jiyong was prepared to speak to him or if he only intended to glare; coming from a ghost the silent treatment was pretty unnerving. Seunghyun sat down and waited.

“…You like them more, right?” said Jiyong at last, in a voice that was almost inaudible and yet which thundered in Seunghyun’s eardrums. “Those _alive_ people, the ones with no humiliating histories to appall you – those pretty warm girls.”

“When did I ever say that?!” Seunghyun exclaimed. “I only brought them over ‘cos _you_ stopped showing up.” He gave Jiyong an earnest stare, entreating the boy to believe him: partly out of fear and partly from guilt that his throwaway garden party had made this lonely creature so unhappy. “I haven’t seen you for _days_. You vanished right after you told me what happened to you – I figured you were done with me! And it’s not ‘humiliating’, your history; it’s just tragic.”

“You gave up on me. You didn’t have to; you could’ve tried to find out about me.” Jiyong’s small fists were clenched at his sides. “If you really cared – aren’t you meant to be the historian?”

“Of furniture,” Seunghyun reminded him. “What, was this meant to be a test?!” He’d been right, this was exactly the same as what had happened with Dae and the lampshade: all this fury, it wasn’t because Seunghyun had done something wrong or because the ghost was embarrassed – it was because Jiyong felt neglected. “I do care! I call for you every morning! It’s you who’s been ignoring _me_.”

“You want to know what really happened to me?” snapped Jiyong, ignoring that too. The boy sounded breathless, which was curious for a creature that surely didn’t breathe. “Would that make me more interesting to you? Would _that_ get you to make more effort with me?”

“Jiyong…”

“All right.” The specter folded his hands in front of his black uniform jacket and composed his features in a very non-teenage way. He rippled slightly, then stilled and closed his eyes. “I’ve never told anyone this – so listen well.”

“…I’m listening,” said Seunghyun; he had no choice.

“I told you we lived here for the last two years of my life.” Seunghyun nodded mutely. “With my mother’s lover, this older man, close ties with the colonial government. She was only his mistress but he lived here with us most of the time: he couldn’t marry her but he was that crazy about her. They all were, the men, she had that effect on them. She was quite smart, you know; she was an entertainer so she didn’t spend much time with me, but I admired her a lot. He bought us this house and he lived with us – he called himself my stepfather.”

“Right,” said Seunghyun encouragingly. “But you didn’t call him that.”

“I didn’t like to: I knew the odds were against him sticking around, my mother only spent a couple of years on any man as a rule. Besides, he didn’t know how to deal with having his mistress’s brat underfoot: sometimes he’d yell at me to get lost, other times he’d give me presents and try to talk to me, get close to me.” Seunghyun didn’t find this very surprising, though it must have been an unpleasant roller-coaster of uncertainty for a boy in Jiyong’s position. “Mother scolded me at first for being cold with him: she told me he was trying his best, and this one was worth hanging on to. But later…”

“Yeah?”

“Well…he did love her,” acknowledged Jiyong, looking bitter. “Too much: he was obsessed with her. He had to go away on business quite a lot, to Busan and Japan. That was fine at first; but after a year or so he wouldn’t let her go out without him there – wanted her to stay in this house for weeks on end! My mother hated that, but he was such a good provider; she was thinking of me as well as herself…at least I hope she was…so she didn’t want to leave him. Then again, she couldn’t obey all his ridiculous whims! Entertainment was her vocation – she was a social creature. Neither of us were that well-behaved,” Jiyong informed him with a half-smile. “He started getting angry. And I mean _angry_.” Seunghyun felt a ripple of cold air hit him: a ghostly shudder. He shivered in response, no longer sure he _did_ want to hear this story, suspecting now how it would end.

“Was he violent?” he said, and heard a pointlessly protective growl in his own voice.

“Eventually.” Jiyong’s sweet mouth became a line. “He cut all her hair off to stop her going out – she was only at a dance hall with her friends! But he couldn’t stand it. The next time he hit her. Then he burnt her arm; I think he wanted to scar her so she couldn’t run to any other man. I told you, he was _obsessed_. And I…I tried to stop him but he barely knew I was alive, he was so strong compared to me. My mother tried to put me in boarding school after that – she wanted me out of harm’s way, or maybe she thought I was making things worse. I wouldn’t stay there, though, and they gave up making me. So I was here when everything ended.”

“Jiyong.” Seunghyun reached out one hand, a futile gesture of comfort or pause. “You don’t have to tell me this if you don’t want to. You’re already the most fascinating person I’ve ever met – if this is painful for you then _don’t_.” It was half to protect them both, half to convince himself: a kind of horrified fascination had filled him, the kind that makes normal people stop and stare at car crashes, and he was on fire to hear the end – though he knew he would hate it when he did.

“No. I can say it,” Jiyong assured him, face bland. “I want you to _know_ me.” Seunghyun’s chest felt heavy with the pressure of this responsibility. “Anyway, it’s simple: at long last my mother came to her senses, and she realized we had to get out. I don’t know what he did to her to make her decide; whatever it was, she didn’t tell me. She just waited until he went away on business, then packed up our valuables and snuck off. I guess she didn’t trust me to keep the secret because I had no idea: what had made her snap, or where we were supposed to go. She left _without_ me,” he said, and Seunghyun couldn’t avoid hearing the tiny break in his voice. “I was meant to follow her; perhaps she thought we’d be less conspicuous separately. She went while I was at school, left a note in my bedroom telling me where to rendezvous: one of her old girlfriends was going to meet me and take me to her. Only I never got the note – because _he_ got it first.”

“He knew she was going to leave?” gasped Seunghyun.

“He must have suspected something; maybe my mother had told one of the servants beforehand and they’d ratted on her. Who knows? But he came back early from his trip – he missed _her_ , thank god, but he found the note. I don’t know how long he spent tearing up the house; by the time I got home from school he was like a mad thing. I didn’t _know_.” Jiyong clasped his hands tighter. “I walked in, went to the dining room for a snack as usual, and there he was. He showed me the note,” said Jiyong. “I almost choked on it: he tried to stuff it down my throat. He grabbed me and shook me like a was a rag doll, interrogated me – come hell or high water, he wanted her back! But what could I tell him? I had no idea what my mother’s girlfriend looked like; how was I supposed to lead him to her? And when he realized that, I think he snapped completely. I look like my mother,” the boy reminded Seunghyun. “I suppose in that moment it was all he could see. So he took it out on me. And here I am – forever.”

“…The dining-room floor,” whispered Seunghyun, feeling nauseous. The stain that would never come out.

“That’s right,” said Jiyong, observing the bigger man’s wilting form with his familiar stare. “He was well-connected enough that the whole thing was covered up. My own mother never knew what happened to me! Or…or if she heard about it she never came back here: _nobody_ came looking.” His jaw tightened. “He sold the house once he’d straightened it up – but they could never get those floorboards clean.”

“…And you were stuck here from that moment,” concluded Seunghyun with a shudder. “You couldn’t move on?”

“No. To where? I’ve never seen anything else.” Jiyong’s eyes turned pale and piercing. “I didn’t want to move on – I wanted to _live_!” Drily he added: “Do I frighten you, Seunghyun?”

“No,” managed Seunghyun. It was a lie: he did. Seunghyun pitied Jiyong to a frightening degree, a pointless feeling of protectiveness that could never be exercised because it came eighty years too late. That sordid story had exhausted him with the burden of hearing it; and at the same time Seunghyun’s own sordid side had wanted to know every detail, as if Jiyong’s life and death was some Victorian penny-dreadful. He was as sick at himself as at the story.

“Do you want to be close to me now? Like you were with those girls?” inquired Jiyong from a distance; was he deliberately torturing himself? What did he want Seunghyun to _say_?

“…I’m sorry,” was all he _could_ say. He felt so ill that if Jiyong came any closer right now he thought he might have a screaming fit. As if he could read his mind, Jiyong gave him a bleak smile.

“Ah. Well, at least it’s not because I’m boring.” And with that he began to fade away.

“Jiyong!” burst out Seunghyun – it felt like such an effort to speak, as though Jiyong’s horror story had drained all his physical and mental strength. “Don’t go! I’m not _scared_ of you…” But Jiyong had disappeared. The only thing he heard in reply was the quick thump of his mom’s footsteps ascending the stairs, coming to ask what was wrong.

* * *

Seunghyun couldn’t sleep that night – who would after a tale like that? He was too drained to get up and go downstairs, even to fetch a book and try to block it all out with a good sci-fi. He simply lay there in the dark, the cogs of his mind throwing up images of Jiyong’s mother, his living self, bright in technicolor; and the man who had killed him. He hadn’t heard exactly how it happened so his brain began inventing things, each scenario worse than the last, until they paraded in front of him even with his eyes open. Seunghyun forced down a heave of dismay; how could he face Jiyong again when _this_ was all he could see?

An uncomfortably cool draft touched Seunghyun’s sweating face and hands, and abruptly he felt Jiyong’s presence surround him: it felt as distressed as he was. He could see nothing, but Jiyong’s quivering voice inside his ear told him:

“…I’m sorry.”

“It doesn’t matter,” the bigger man whispered into the blackness. “I’m not afraid of you, Jiyong – you didn’t have to leave.” He swallowed. “I’ll listen to whatever you want to tell me.” The air in the room didn’t seem soothed by this; it prickled against his skin in agitation.

“I have to show you, Seunghyun!” he heard; there were tears in that small voice. “I…I don’t want to remember alone anymore…” Seunghyun experienced an awesome thrill as he felt something invisible make contact with his fingers: something that felt like a hand. He caught his breath at the strangeness of it, and the next moment he was no longer in his dark bedroom but downstairs in the dining room – as it must have looked many decades before. For a second he gawped around at the perfect period furnishings; then he saw Jiyong in bright, terrified color, and the man who would end his life: right here, right now, in front of Seunghyun’s eyes.

“Where’s your _mother_?” screamed the bearded man, obviously not for the first time; he was brandishing a scrap of paper. “She has to pay for her sins!” Jiyong answered him in a petrified, stumbling voice – he didn’t know. The man stared at him frantically. “Then _you’ll_ have to do.” Before Seunghyun could yell out a warning Jiyong’s keeper rushed forward. Seunghyun tried to look away and couldn’t, but it wouldn’t have mattered if he had: he _felt_ Jiyong’s fear and pain, an endless stream that was far more devastating than the awful things happening to him. Minutes after the knife went in Seunghyun experienced a small wrench as the life in the boy gave up at last. Then blissful, formless quiet.

When Seunghyun came back to himself he felt tears streaming down his face.

“Jiyong…?” he said hoarsely, and felt the ghost’s presence all around him.

“Do you understand me now?” whispered Jiyong, sounding so young and lonely that Seunghyun had to suppress a sob. “I want to be close to someone…to _you_.” The invisible aura sank closer; Seunghyun wanted to wrap his arms around it and couldn’t. “I was jealous of your friends,” Jiyong told him. “And now you see why: I’m not capricious, it’s not a whim.” His voice came closer, even closer, until Seunghyun could almost hear it within him. “…I haven’t touched a living soul since _he_ touched me.”

“…I understand!” gasped Seunghyun, and caught Jiyong’s own sob, very low and quite human. He wanted to hold the boy safe, form a fleshly barrier to keep that memory away from him: of course Jiyong yearned for warmth, someone to listen to him and touch him! But Seunghyun was very much afraid he couldn’t give him everything he needed. “I’ll listen to you; if my friendship can give you warmth then I’m your friend!”

“Seunghyun…” came a voice like the breeze. For a few seconds the sensation of a tangible hand touching his own persisted; he felt the small cold fingers squeeze him. It vanished, but Jiyong’s presence remained, wrapped over and around him like a melancholy but hopeful blanket. To his relief Seunghyun drifted off into a bone-tired sleep, and dreamt of lying in sunlight with Jiyong in his arms.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As you've probably gathered, all the romance is going to come in the next chapter ^^;  
> It'll be up next Sunday! (I was going to release it on Seunghyun's bday but I don't think it'll be quite ready...)
> 
> Let me know what you think so far :)


	2. The Spirit is Willing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Jiyong gets scolded for being a creeper - but it doesn't take them long to make up!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you guys are still in a Halloween mood! This would be the 'fluff' part of the fic :)

The morning after Jiyong opened his heart felt awkward in a way that almost made Seunghyun laugh – if he was capable of ever laughing again. It was close to the feeling of having fallen into bed with someone you’d no intention of sleeping with: you remembered what you’d done the night before and wondered what the hell was going to happen now… Seunghyun found himself both wiped out and on edge. But when Jiyong turned up, an invisible but cautiously sunny presence in his bedroom, the awkwardness disappeared.

Seunghyun was aware that the things Jiyong had shown him had changed the connection between them. The idea that he knew this ghost in a more terrible and intimate way than he knew any living person affected him deeply. He couldn’t tell whether he felt more sorry for the boy or admiring – here Jiyong was, after a horrific death and all these years, lucid and willing to give a human a chance to do right by him – but from that combination of pity and respect Seunghyun developed a feeling of great affection. The knowledge that he wasn’t disgusted by Jiyong seemed to make all the difference in the world to the mood of the house, and the next few days passed more or less harmoniously. Oh, Jiyong still had the power to surprise, shock, and scare him, but the way he used that power had become almost _cute_ : like a kitten batting at a ball of wool.

“…Are you in here?!” demanded Seunghyun, voice echoing in the glass shower stall. The sense of Jiyong’s existence in the house was almost constant, but right now it felt rather too _pointed_.

“Yes,” came the familiar voice. Seunghyun snatched up the washcloth and held it in front of his privates in mild outrage. “I’ve been watching you since you moved in,” Jiyong reminded him. “It’s not as though I never saw you take a bath.”

“Ji _yong_!” It was as bad as having a spy camera in your bathroom, thought Seunghyun, turning crimson under the steam – not that Jiyong would know what one was. He slammed back against the stall as the boy abruptly materialized, almost transparent against the glass and with the water falling right through him. “Don’t _do_ that.”

“You said it’s less creepy when you can see me.”

“Not when I’m _naked_ , you pervert!”

“I’m dead,” Jiyong said reasonably, arms folded behind his back. “It’s all the same to me.” That was as may be, thought Seunghyun crossly; but being dead didn’t appear to stop Jiyong giving him a thorough inventory from head to toe.

“It’s embarrassing – I _know_ you know what that feels like.”

“Ohh.” Jiyong tilted his head and an instant later his clothes disappeared, leaving him as bare as Seunghyun. “Does this help?” Seunghyun was so shocked he almost fell on his ass; he scrabbled for the shower rod and hauled himself upright. He had never seen Jiyong without his school uniform; now here he was, hands still clasped behind his back, nonchalantly showing _everything_.

“Help?!” No, it damn well did not help. Jiyong’s body was _charming_ , and the realization that a ghost could make him think such a thing caused Seunghyun’s brain, in a small way, to implode. For christ’s sake, Jiyong was a _murder victim_. As he struggled to tear his gaze away he saw Jiyong as he had been in the memory they’d shared: paper-white, a long dark gash in his belly and another at his throat. Seunghyun screwed his eyes closed, gasping, one hand over his mouth.

“Gosh,” said Jiyong, who evidently had no idea what his human friend was seeing. “You really _are_ a prude.” He sounded vaguely disappointed, but mostly amused. “All right, you can open them – I’m going.” Seunghyun crouched there panting for a good two minutes, steam dizzying him, before he dared take a peep: Jiyong had indeed disappeared. He finished up and dressed quickly; and all the while he had the vision of Jiyong’s body before him, whole and too alluring or torn-up and pitiful. He didn’t know which image was worse, or how he would possibly be able to forget them.

Seunghyun skipped breakfast, diving into his chores with single-minded concentration. His dad gave him an odd look as he lied about the cut on his temple; Seunghyun could hear them talking about him again. Jiyong hovered around him but mercifully didn’t appear. By lunchtime Seunghyun thought he might be able to stomach something and probably ought to: he felt weak as if he was coming down with the flu.

“Are you going to eat?” asked Jiyong at his ear. He nodded. “Oh, good,” said the boy, sounding pleased. “What?”

“Rice and egg.”

“Make some meat too. And kimchi!” Seunghyun did as he was told because why not, and sat down in the dining room in the chair furthest from the now gruesome stain on the floorboards; the striped rug covered it but he could almost _feel_ it there. He could sense Jiyong’s unwavering attention, almost as intently as he’d watched him in the shower.

“What’s so interesting?” he inquired in a low voice; he didn’t want his parents catching him ‘talking to himself’ again.

“I like seeing you eat.” Jiyong’s voice hummed pleasantly in his ear canal, pitched for him alone. “Obviously _I_ can’t. I miss it.”

“Ah.” Seunghyun glanced down at his bowl. “Right. I mean…where would it go?”

“Exactly.”

“I guess you don’t need energy like ordinary people.”

“Actually,” Jiyong informed him, “I do; especially if I’m trying to do something impressive.” He went quiet, and a moment later Seunghyun felt the touch of fingertips against his forehead, lightly brushing the skin around his cut. “It takes…a lot of effort to make a solid shape,” said Jiyong, his voice fainter than before.” Seunghyun was fascinated again at the sensation, cold but unmistakably there.

“So where does the energy come from? Electricity?”

“Good question.” Jiyong went silent again, possibly worn out. “Eat,” was all he said when Seunghyun showed signs of slowing. “It’s fun to watch.” Eager to oblige, Seunghyun went for second helpings.

Later they watched films on the projector. Jiyong knew what they were, of course; he described his memories of the switch from silent movies that had happened shortly before his death, how he had loved to go to the cinema while his mother was on dates. He liked period dramas, Seunghyun learned, and old romances – and haunted house flicks.

“They’re funny,” he explained, making Seunghyun scroll through the horror section on Netflix.

“They’re _scary_.”

“Honestly.” Seunghyun felt the air around the couch prickle as Jiyong laughed. “It’s just special effects – and they always get something wrong.” Of course, he wouldn’t have seen a horror movie since the Eighties; Seunghyun wondered what he’d make of CGI.

“Maybe so, but they _look_ freaky as hell.” Seunghyun paused on _Ringu_ with a shudder. “Not many ghosts are cute like you.”

“Thanks,” said Jiyong with what sounded like a smile. Seunghyun pushed away another naked image and hurried on.

“Except Patrick Swayze, of course.”

“What’s that?”

“This actor from an old movie, my mom loves it. It was made in the Eighties but I guess you didn’t get to see it: it’s called _Ghost_.”

“I didn’t.”

“It’s, like…a ghost love story?” explained Seunghyun, trying to remember the plot.

“Oh!” That sweet, wistful voice; maybe it wasn’t the tactful thing to show that kind of movie to a lonely spirit. “Who’s the ghost, the boy or the girl?”

“The boy. And he was quite the looker – my mom says.”

“Show me.”

“It’s not on here,” Seunghyun apologized, flicking through the films. “We can rent it later if you want. Here, I’ll show you the trailer.” He patted about for his phone before remembering he’d left it upstairs; he’d been so taken up with Jiyong that he hadn’t thought to glance at it all day. “Left my phone in my room.” He was about to heave himself off the couch to fetch it when he felt the air around him turn expectant – as if there was an eager dog waiting for him. “…You mind getting it for me?” he ventured.

“Sure!” Jiyong sounded so proud. Seunghyun supposed it didn’t take too much energy, as the boy had spent half his time transporting their belongings around the place when they first moved in. He waited. “Just a sec,” came Jiyong’s voice.

“I thought you’d gone.”

“I’m fetching it right now,” said Jiyong happily. “I told you, I can be in every part of the house.” There was a nudge to Seunghyun’s cheek and he turned his head: his smartphone was gliding smoothly through the doorway at eye level.

“You clever thing!” The sight would never get less weird, Seunghyun was sure, but at the same time it made him want to clap his hands; making Jiyong feel good, he found, had risen pretty high on his list of priorities. The phone was halfway across the dining room when a petrified rasp of breath from the kitchen doorway made him snap his head round: his mother was standing there, watching the floating phone with eyes so wide they looked like they might fall out of her skull. At the same instant Jiyong noticed her and the phone flung itself across the room, smashing against the doorframe by her head. Seunghyun didn’t even think about the state of his device: he could only think of the danger – Jiyong had been startled and didn’t care too much for Seunghyun’s parents at the best of times. What if he tried to _do_ something?! Frantically the bigger man shook his head, hoping Jiyong was watching him.

“…Seunghyun,” said his mom weakly, clinging to the doorframe. “Oh, honey, it’s back!” He looked at her, mouth open: _finally_ she was admitting there was something wrong? “We didn’t want to worry you,” she managed. “And then it seemed to go away, but…oh, your father was right, it’s _got_ you!!”

“What?” Seunghyun gave her an uncomprehending look. Maybe if he pretended he’d never seen the phone whizz by – if he lied as they’d lied to _him_ – she’d think she was seeing things.

“You’ve been talking to something,” his mother announced. “We’ve both heard you! And now you’re _moving_ things!”

“Mom, I have no idea what you’re talking about.” She stared at him, just as Jiyong was staring.

“…You don’t even know you’re doing it, do you!” Seunghyun spread his hands helplessly. “Sweetheart, we should have told you before we moved in – there’s something not right in this house. I think…I think it’s _gone into_ you.”

“What’re you trying to tell me?” She swallowed.

“I don’t know. But I think…you might be possessed.”

“ _Mom_!” Seunghyun couldn’t believe it: his modern, rational parents – they weren’t even Catholic! – thought their son had a _demon_ in him?

“I hope I’m wrong,” she said unsteadily. “But if it’s not you, it’s something else in this house.” Seunghyun tried to read the air around them and gauge how Jiyong was feeling about all this. The ghost didn’t seem especially distressed but there was no doubt he was a little put out; Seunghyun just hoped he could avoid it escalating to the point at which Jiyong might hurt his mother. “Don’t worry, sweetheart,” his mom continued, pulling herself up and giving the ceiling a baleful look. “Whatever it is, we’re going to fix it!” That couldn’t be good.

“…What are you going to do?” asked Seunghyun. She squared her jaw.

“I’ll speak to your father. And then we’ll see. You go upstairs now – and be careful. I’m _very_ worried about you.” And on that ominous note she strode out of the room.

* * *

“You’re not worried at _all_?” demanded Seunghyun as he lay in bed with his taped-together phone, Jiyong floating invisible beside him.

“No. What’re they going to try that hasn’t been tried before?”

“Could be _anything_. Times have changed, Jiyong, I’ve got no idea what kind of experts are out there now!”

“If I were you,” said Jiyong, who’d agreed not to bother Seunghyun’s mother until it became clear what she had planned, “I’d be more concerned about yourself: I hear it’s no joke, being exorcised. I’ve seen it in the films.”

“I’m not _possessed_!”

“As if that’s ever mattered. But don’t get all het-up,” the boy’s voice advised. “If anyone even tries to give you the old going-over, I’ll protect you!”

“…You will?”

“Of course.” As Jiyong spoke Seunghyun felt something like a feather-light, porous blanket envelop him from his head to his toes; slightly cold but soft and comforting. He couldn’t touch it, and when he tried his fingers tingled with static. “As long as you’re in my house,” murmured Jiyong, his voice coming from all around Seunghyun, “nothing from the outside will harm you. I promise you that.”

“Is this you?” whispered Seunghyun, rolling over to feel the gentle presence cocoon him; he felt very sleepy and safe.

“It’s me,” said Jiyong fondly. “Be easy: I’m watching over you.” Seunghyun tried once more to touch the invisible cloud, failed, and was out like a light.

* * *

“Seunghyun,” said dream-Jiyong brightly. “Wake up.” Seunghyun did, opened one eye, and saw the waking version reclining next to him, almost transparent against the dark-blue covers. He put out a hand, wondering if Jiyong’s spectral body still felt like that wonderful cloudlike substance – he’d slept like a baby. The hand went right through Jiyong’s thigh: nothing. “That only works if I’m concentrating,” the boy told him.

“Oh, right. Well…morning.”

“Good morning,” said Jiyong. “There’s a priest downstairs.”

“Huh?!” Seunghyun jumped out of bed, aghast; his parents had moved _fast_. Where had they even found a priest at such short notice? The new movies had all taught him that there was a heap of bureaucracy one had to go through to apply for an exorcism.

“In the kitchen; your mother’s about to call you.” Jiyong watched Seunghyun rush around the room, dragging his clothes on and jamming his mended glasses on his nose.

“Seunghyun!” came his mother’s voice; she sounded guilty. “Come down, please!”

“You’re coming with me, right?” entreated Seunghyun. “Unless it’s dangerous for you?”

“I wouldn’t miss it.”

The priest was a youngish, ordinary-looking man with the air of a college professor. He was drinking coffee from Seunghyun’s favorite mug. Seunghyun grudgingly accepted the second-best cup and slurped at it noisily, glaring over the rim. The way the man was observing him and the cut on his forehead might have been unnerving if Seunghyun hadn’t been so used to Jiyong.

“What do you think, Father?” asked Seunghyun’s dad, who looked thoroughly uncomfortable, and serve him right.

“I doubt there’s anything wrong with this young man.” The priest sounded like a normal person, and the only one in the kitchen demonstrating any sense. Seunghyun could feel Jiyong all around them; he didn’t seem perturbed at all. The bigger man started to relax, hoping this would reassure his parents. “Possession is extremely rare,” the priest went on. “But I’d say you _do_ have a restless house – and that’s something I can help with.”

“How?” asked Seunghyun’s mother, raising a cigarette to her lips with a tense hand. The priest stood up.

“I’d like to bless your home.” Seunghyun’s parents exchanged glances.

“All right. What do we need to do?”

“Pray, if you’d like to.” The professional placed a bag on the table. “Otherwise leave it to me.” He opened it to reveal a large cross and a spray bottle of what Seunghyun could only assume was holy water. Mightn’t that hurt Jiyong? he worried; if he was really part of the house, a concoction like that might be caustic. As if the boy could read his mind Jiyong appeared beside him; Seunghyun started, then coughed to cover it.

“They can’t see me,” said Jiyong in his private inner-ear voice. “And that stuff can’t hurt me.” Seunghyun shot him a doubtful look. “I’ve seen this before,” Jiyong assured him. “You name it, I’ve had them in here: priests, ministers, preachers.” The priest took the water, raised the cross, and began to walk through the house speaking Latin. The little party followed him, Seunghyun’s parents half hopeful and half suspicious, Seunghyun irritated, and Jiyong blithe about the whole affair. “Know what a cross is to me?” the ghost said as the priest swept it across the place where he was standing. “Two bits of wood.”

It took about thirty minutes. Seunghyun couldn’t deny it was interesting, and his parents’ expressions had gradually grown tranquil thanks to the litany of prayers and Jiyong’s restraint. The priest took a last look around the house, a faint line between his eyebrows; as the front door closed behind him Seunghyun exhaled in relief.

“See?” he told his mother. “You feel better now?”

“It had to be done,” she said. “We were just lucky he agreed to come.” Seunghyun pulled a face and turned away to get breakfast; he still couldn’t believe they’d gone this far. Thank god it hadn’t hurt Jiyong!

“You look grumpy,” murmured Jiyong in his ear. Seunghyun huffed to himself and rummaged for the cereal. “Want me to put the wind up them? Just to serve them right?”

“Are you kidding?!” hissed Seunghyun out of the corner of his mouth. “No!” His mom’s head whipped round.

“What was that?”

“Nothing!” he called. At the edge of his vision Jiyong smiled that wicked smile; the boy narrowed his eyes – and the power shut off. Seunghyun’s parents looked up as the fridge stopped humming and the kitchen went silent. “I’ll check the breaker,” mumbled Seunghyun, and hurried off to the cupboard under the stairs. How could Jiyong be so reckless?! _Seventeen_ , he reminded himself; perhaps an eternal trickster. He reset the breaker and the house hummed back into modernity. He was returning to the kitchen when he heard a shriek and a crash: when he got there all the cereal bowls were on the floor. “Accident,” said Seunghyun firmly. His father gaped at him. He decided to give up on breakfast.

* * *

“There’s another one,” said Jiyong two days later. He’d been very slightly contrite after Seunghyun’s scolding, and had acted meek and unobtrusive in apology; he’d even refrained from staring in the shower. But what the hell use was that, thought Seunghyun angrily, when his antics had brought another damn religieuse down on them?!

“A priest?” Seunghyun set his window-cleaning supplies down and wiped his forehead; the cut still stung him. He felt Jiyong’s attention concentrate itself at the front of the house.

“Ugh. No.” The ghost sounded vaguely alarmed, which made the hair stand up on Seunghyun’s arms: the idea of Jiyong discomfited was a worrying one. “A _mudang_.” Seunghyun jogged in the back door straight through to the front, and found an unfamiliar car parked beside the courtyard wall with an elderly woman in white climbing out of it. He knew what a _mudang_ was, of course: a shaman. His parents were greeting her, taking her bags of spiritual paraphernalia and leading her towards the house. She stopped, squinted at the hanok under its light cloud cover, then turned sharply right and began to walk its perimeter.

“Have you seen one before?” Seunghyun whispered, tailing the small group around the outside of the house. The shaman was eyeing the walls, poking at the ground and nodding sagely to herself.

“Seen one? I’ve _met_ one,” said Jiyong.

“When you were alive?”

“No.” He was anxious, Seunghyun could tell. “They’re canny, those women – they can feel me. One of them could _see_ me.”

“What happened?!”

“Luckily,” muttered Jiyong, invisible at his side, “the owner of the house back then was a complete skinflint bastard. He was rude to her – the idiot – so she just gave me a wink and went on her way.”

“You want to go keep an eye on her?” The shaman and his parents had circumnavigated the house and were walking up the steps.

“No way.” The air shivered. “Stay out here with me, Seunghyun – I don’t want her getting one sniff of you!” Seunghyun obliged, concerned and ever so slightly tickled; they hid in the garden shed until the _mudang_ drove off.

“Did it work?” he asked his parents. They looked him up and down as if _he_ was the target of the shaman’s rites.

“Let’s hope so,” said his mother darkly. “If not, I don’t know _what_ we’ll do.” Seunghyun bit his lip and retreated to his rooms.

“ _Itchy_ ,” lamented Jiyong once he reappeared in human form. He scratched at his bare arms, his hair a mess where he’d dragged his insubstantial hands through it. “So itchy!”

“What d’you mean?” Seunghyun _was_ sorry for him – but honestly, he’d brought it on himself.

“Her spells! Mugyo really sticks around; it’s all _over_ the house.”

“It’s the only thing that works?”

“It’s the only thing that _bothers_ me.” Jiyong looked frantic; Seunghyun wondered why nothing else affected him, and how long it would take to wear off.

“Were you a Christian when you were alive?” he asked.

“No. I wasn’t much of anything; but my mother used to take me to the shrine when no-one was looking. Maybe it rubbed off on me.” He scratched at the back of his hands. “Ouch!”

“Anything I can do to help?”

“Actually,” said Jiyong, looking wild, “maybe there is!” He floated towards Seunghyun, who braced himself uncertainly. “Let me touch you.” And he wrapped himself around the bigger man, diffusing and spreading until he was the faintest shimmer in Seunghyun’s vision. Seunghyun couldn’t feel him as you would a normal hug; but perhaps Jiyong could feel _him_. “Ah…you’re an atheist, aren’t you,” came that silvery voice, already far calmer than ten seconds before.

“I guess. Who knows since I met you?”

“Mm…you beautiful heathen,” whispered Jiyong. “That feels _so_ much better!”

“Er…good.” It was awfully strange to stand there and feel nothing but wisps of air, as if he was some kind of supernatural scratching post. Seunghyun knew he was being embraced, and he wanted to return it – he wanted to hug Jiyong back. He’d been doing that in his dreams lately, and as long as he could block the vision of the boy’s dead bare body it felt very sweet. But he didn’t think Jiyong had that much power, so he settled for being passively helpful. He was just glad Jiyong was safe.

“Now look,” he said later that night. “Today could’ve been really risky.” Jiyong pouted at his lecturing tone, but drifted over to place his weightless self on Seunghyun’s feet. Seunghyun made himself look grim. “We didn’t need to have that shaman in here at all; it was all because you wanted to tease my mom and dad.”

“They’re trying to get rid of me!”

“No, Jiyong. They just want what you want: a peaceful existence. And that stunt with the plates the other day scared them all over again.” Jiyong curled his lip. Seunghyun reminded himself that the boy had spent eight decades acting precisely as he liked; and that it _was_ his house. But things were different now! Jiyong had Seunghyun, and Seunghyun had a vested interest in not being kicked out or carted off to the psych ward. “You _have_ to behave,” he urged the specter. “What if they decide to move out?!”

“No,” said Jiyong immediately, with a dangerous gleam in his eye. “You can’t let that happen!”

“Ji, they’re the ones with the mortgage – what they say goes.”

“You could stay here by yourself,” suggested Jiyong hopefully. “That would be wonderful. I just want to be with you – with my _friend_. No interruptions.”

“It would be – if they didn’t sell it or decide to tear it down!” Seunghyun had no idea what would happen to a haunting spirit if its house was destroyed, but the possibility had to be avoided at all costs – along with the possibility that Jiyong might take control of his parents in his own lethal hands. “Please, Jiyong, just be good ‘til they calm down.” He gave the ghost a solemn look. “I don’t ever want you to be alone again.” Right in front of him Jiyong began to glow; it was an eerie and beautiful sight. “So you have to help me out – okay?”

“Okay,” said Jiyong softly, a smile on his ethereal face. “I’ll do whatever you want.”

* * *

To Seunghyun’s relief that was the end of the house blessings. Jiyong’s mugyo itchiness wore off and he kept his pranks limited to Seunghyun’s part of the hanok, where he was sure of an appreciative audience. He still followed Seunghyun around, still watched him with an embarrassing level of intimacy. Seunghyun didn’t care anymore: Jiyong was safe, his home was free of religious figures, and he could resume his new normal life – the most enjoyable part of which was Jiyong’s experiments in deepening their connection. The boy seemed so touched by Seunghyun’s declaration of friendship and loyalty that he was doing everything he could think of to show his affection in return: bringing the bigger man snacks while he was studying, running his bath, wrapping that invisible cloud of softness around him at night. And Seunghyun found his own heart responding before he was even aware of it.

“…Hey,” came Jiyong’s voice on the breeze. Seunghyun stretched, sensing the sunlight through his eyelashes; he’d been having a wonderful dream. He couldn’t remember the details and Jiyong had snatched him out of it, but he didn’t mind: he _liked_ his new alarm clock.

“What time is it…?”

“Early.” A cool breeze moved across his body, and Seunghyun noticed he’d kicked his covers off – or someone had. “Did you know,” said Jiyong in a tickle against his ear, “that you’re hard?” Seunghyun gawped at the empty air for a second, then looked down, yelped, and cupped his hands over the front of his pajama pants.

“Fucking hell, Jiyong!” Did _he_ know how ungentlemanlike it was to point out something so embarrassing as morning wood? Seunghyun got an inkling of what his dream might have been, and went scarlet. He tried to roll over and was shocked into stillness as he hit a _wall_ of pressure: an unseen, implacable cushion. “Hey!”

“Could I try something?” asked Jiyong in a way that sounded _shy_. Seunghyun goggled in the direction the voice had come from – then he took a shuddery breath as something _touched_ him. It wasn’t solid, it had no shape to it; but it flowed beneath his clothing to wrap its soft, silky being around his cock. Seunghyun gasped Jiyong’s name and the blanket of sensation stilled. “…It’s not okay?” said Jiyong faintly. Added to the softness was a distant prickle of static that spoke to the boy’s anxiety.

“It’s…” The bigger man gulped, his own voice coming hoarse; he was achingly hard, he’d never felt anything like it. Probably no-one ever had. “I didn’t know you saw me that way,” he mumbled. “I didn’t know the dead could…well.”

“I see you _my_ way,” Jiyong told him. “You’re beautiful, and _warm_ , and you try to look after me. Why shouldn’t I try and make you feel good in _your_ way? It feels so sweet,” he added wistfully. “Being this close to your life.” Seunghyun was about to blurt out something stupid about how _young_ Jiyong was to be making this kind of decision. Just in time he remembered the ‘old enough to be your grandfather’ line, which killed the mood slightly but not nearly enough. Jiyong’s voice was so enticing, his lightest touch outrageously good. If he didn’t mind, who was Seunghyun to protest?

“Yes,” he said, his voice dropping low at Jiyong’s hum of approval. The flood of delicious sensation swept around his erection again; he tried to compare it to something and couldn’t; he couldn’t imagine _anything_ this fine. “God…!” he groaned as the touch intensified, spreading through his pelvis until he had to buck his hips up into it. “How…how did you _learn_ this?!”

“I didn’t.” Jiyong moved the air against his ear and Seunghyun shivered – even that was divine! “I never had a lover; not really.” Seunghyun groaned again, clapping one hand over his mouth. “But I used to touch myself, of course – and I’ve watched you doing it.” More blushes; Seunghyun had always considered himself pretty assertive in the bedroom, and now here he was, putty in Jiyong’s spectral hands. He wouldn’t last long at this rate, he was sure of it.

“…I want to see you!” he burst out, head thrown back against the pillow. He was being so careful not to imagine that dreadful scene, the vision of Jiyong’s body that haunted his private thoughts. If he could just see him, whole and unmarked, this moment would be perfect.

“All right.” Jiyong made a gratified sound. “Just for a minute…” And there he was, kneeling over Seunghyun, lovely monochrome face gazing down at him as though he wanted to drink in every second of the bigger man’s pleasure. His hands were indistinct and still didn’t _feel_ like hands, but it didn’t matter: he was radiant. Seunghyun thrust up into that velvety touch and it moved across him faster. Jiyong’s lips had parted in a very human expression of concentration; Seunghyun wanted to kiss him! In fact he had never wanted to do anything quite so badly. With a futile hope he raised his hands – they were trembling – to catch the boy around the waist. As he’d thought, they passed right through Jiyong’s uniform with nothing more than a faint tingle.

“You’re so beautiful…” managed Seunghyun; it seemed praise was the only thing he could give Jiyong. “Wish…I could kiss you!”

“Not now…” said Jiyong regretfully. “Not enough energy.” He lowered his face to Seunghyun’s and the soft inhuman cloud brushed the other man’s lips. It wasn’t like kissing at all, but it contained so much affection that Seunghyun felt tears prick the corners of his eyes. Jiyong redirected his concentration to making his friend squirm, and a minute later Seunghyun came, biting down on his hand to stop his paranoid parents from charging up the stairs in a panic. He lay there, chest heaving, while Jiyong composed himself and watched him breathe with a smile that was as much self-satisfaction as envy.

“…Jesus Christ,” said Seunghyun, blowing hard. “No-one’s _ever_ made me come like that before.” Jiyong looked smug, if transparent; he must have used a lot of energy. “I think…” Seunghyun yawned and fumbled for tissues. “Think you knocked me out – I’m gonna have to go back to sleep!”

“Yes,” agreed Jiyong. “I forgot how much effort humans put into it! Take a nap; I’m going to watch silent movies on your phone.”

“I just feel bad,” admitted Seunghyun through another yawn. “A gentleman would return the favor.”

“…You can’t,” said Jiyong after a minute. “But I’ll tell you what you _can_ do: you can take your clothes off.” Seunghyun felt his cheeks burn but obeyed; Jiyong’s eyes gleamed. When Seunghyun threw his pajamas at him and they passed right through, he laughed; when Seunghyun stuck his tongue out he wrinkled his nose but didn’t stop ogling him. Seunghyun heaved a satiated sigh and sank back into pleasant dreams, his ghostly lover watching over him.

* * *

The drift from platonic into sexual bothered Seunghyun less than he’d thought. He acknowledged that he was probably a confirmed freak, like those nutcases on late-night talk shows who insisted they were dating the ghost of Elvis. Who knew, perhaps they were? How many other curious spirits were out there trying to have a little fun with the living? At least Jiyong had _asked_. Seunghyun had never felt pleasure like the kind Jiyong could dish out. He wasn’t exactly sure why the boy was so eager to get him off, or what Jiyong could receive in return – warmth, perhaps, he seemed to revel in that.

“Feels like…a _sex blanket_ ,” said Seunghyun dizzily when Jiyong quizzed him about the sensation. The ghost let out one of his silvery laughs. “But I still like it when you turn solid.” Occasionally at night Jiyong would expend the energy necessary to form a hand or a pair of lips; they were usually invisible but Seunghyun would close his eyes and pretend Jiyong was _real_ , that those were human fingers curled around his cock and human lips on his. They couldn’t sustain it for very long, but then Seunghyun didn’t _need_ too long: by the time Jiyong had indulged him for hours with the delicious cloud, stimulating every part of his body at once, it only took a few minutes with a solid hand or mouth to finish him off.

“It’s not too cold for you?” checked Jiyong after, drifting invisible beside him. Seunghyun hummed in exhausted satisfaction, pulling the blankets up but leaning in to the soft tendrils of presence that lingered around his face.

“I got used to it. I don’t care if you give me the chills – they’re _exactly_ the right kind.”

“Charmer,” came Jiyong’s voice, very quiet. There was a pause. “You’re going out tomorrow, yes?” Seunghyun yawned.

“Mm. Just hanging out at Youngbae’s. I’ll be back before bed.” Seunghyun was aware – through numerous worried Line messages – that his friends thought there was something deeply wrong with him, maybe something diabolic stopping him leaving the house. He’d been skipping out on his social duties and his excuses were getting lame; he could hardly say he wouldn’t come to noraebang because he was dating a dead boy.

“I wish you weren’t going.” Seunghyun, knowing Jiyong’s decades of loneliness, wanted to hug him.

“I wish you were _coming_.” They both sighed at this. “I won’t be long. And behave yourself, yeah? Don’t get cranky and do that thing with the lights.”

“I won’t.”

“Kiss?” suggested Seunghyun, snuggling down. A moment in which he could feel the buildup of concentration, and gossamer lips touched his.

“Night,” murmured Jiyong, sounding very far away. He started to say something else, but Seunghyun was already asleep.

* * *

“ _Seunghyun_!”

“Shhh,” whispered Seunghyun as Jiyong’s presence wrapped around him on the darkened stairs; he’d not been back thirty seconds. “My parents are still up.”

“Don’t care!” announced Jiyong at a barely lowered volume. The air around Seunghyun was crackling with static that stood his hair up – his lover must be in quite a state. He hurried up to his rooms and shut himself in, and was immediately engulfed in Jiyong’s need.

“I said I’d be back before bedtime,” he reminded the boy; perhaps he’d been a bit later than he’d intended, but Youngbae had all the latest games and he’d lost track of time.

“Everything’s so _cold_ without you.” Jiyong’s voice hit a little below Seunghyun’s ear, as if the ghost was hugging him from behind and stretching up to whisper. “I never felt that before, but as soon as you left…”

“I don’t know if that’s a physical thing,” mused Seunghyun as he tugged his sweater off. “I reckon you just missed me. That’s what we call ‘affection’, Ji. And I felt it too.”

“I know what I call it.” The sweater vanished – it would probably turn up in the bathroom or under the stairs, Jiyong’s apportation skills got fuzzy when he was rattled – and Seunghyun’s shirt came undone one button at a time.

“You didn’t wig out my parents, right?” Seunghyun quizzed him, allowing himself to be stripped; he thought they’d looked a tad spooked when he came in.

“No. But I was moping; maybe they picked up on it.”

“Don’t mope,” said Seunghyun softly, stepping out of his clothes and leaning backward; this was a trick he’d grown fond of. The cloud caught him and nudged him towards the bed. “You really _did_ miss me,” he added with a chuckle: looked like there’d be no small talk tonight. Jiyong gave a gentle hum and Seunghyun felt something touch him, a light caress to his hair and his toes, formless and delicate. He let all his muscles relax and prepared to endure the pleasure of Jiyong’s indulgence for as long as humanly possible.

“…You’re so _warm_ ,” said Jiyong, and then the cloud was brushing his lips, his ears, the line of his throat. Seunghyun tipped his head back with a rumble of approval. It was utterly relaxing – it always started that way. Jiyong’s presence curled around his ankles, smoothing along his calves and collar-bones, over and under him. As it progressed across his body he felt goose-bumps rise on his skin, from the slight chill and the tantalizing pleasure advancing inch by inch.

“If this is what you do when you miss me,” he murmured, “I’ll go out with the guys more often!” He felt a plaintive sigh against his ear. “I’m kidding,” he assured Jiyong, and was rewarded as his nipples began to tingle; he had no idea what the boy was doing, maybe futzing with the air molecules, but it had him hard and aching in seconds. “If I could…I’d take you with me.”

“Imagine…” came Jiyong’s voice. “Seeing the world with you.” The cloud pressed against Seunghyun’s lips, a little more solid, and the bigger man parted them so Jiyong could feel the heat of his mouth. He heard himself moan quietly; the movement along his body continued.

“Did you ever…go abroad?” he asked to distract himself; his hands closed on the pillow beneath his head.

“No.” Jiyong didn’t get distracted: he could carry on a conversation and drive Seunghyun crazy at the same time. “I never left Seoul.”

“Too…bad. You’d have looked _exquisite_ with the palaces of Europe as…oohh…your backdrop.”

“Who needs abroad?” said Jiyong with hopeless envy. “If I could walk a mile past my own gate and see Seoul today, what eighty years has made of it…but it might as well be outer space.”

“Yeah…” Seunghyun felt terribly sorry for him, but he tucked the pity away to dwell on later: Jiyong had reached his belly and thighs, and the sensation changed. The wispy touches of cloud gradually became something like the flow of water, a lapping liquid progression that swirled into his navel and around his buttocks until at last – at long last – the cool silk enveloped his cock. “ _Ahh_ , Jiyong…” Seunghyun parted his thighs encouragingly, and the sensation threaded through his fingers while it flowed between his legs. Both touches felt equally intimate. Then Jiyong was above him, below him, inside him, opening him to caress him everywhere. Seunghyun groaned with delight; he felt himself lifted slightly, and let his limbs fall loose, abandoning the care of his body to his ghostly partner. Jiyong was making pretty noises of interest and gratification in his ear, and Seunghyun grit his teeth because he wanted to _see_ him – wanted to touch him in return.

“Can you hold on longer?” inquired Jiyong in a whisper of air. “I don’t want to stop…”

“I’ll go nuts,” muttered Seunghyun, a delightful vertigo sweeping him. “If you keep it up. Can you do that _thing_? I wanna…”

“Yes, darling,” Jiyong told him with only a faint sigh at the human’s lack of stamina. Seunghyun was returned to the bed; he closed his eyes, then gasped as what felt like living lips kissed his thigh. He knew that if he looked he would see nothing, so he pictured Jiyong behind his eyelids, alive and in color, naked and unharmed – he wouldn’t think about _that_ – kneeling over him, slender limbs straddling him as he laid kisses along Seunghyun’s hip. The lips touched his erection, opened and became a mouth, swallowing him whole. Seunghyun repressed a curse. It was liquid and rhythmic, constricting in the best way; still very far from human, of course, Jiyong’s eternal coolness saw to that – then again, what human could possibly do to him what Jiyong was doing? Because every other inch of him was being pleasured at the same time: a human would need ten hands and it still wouldn’t be as good. Quite apart from the physical sensations, no-one else could _sound_ like Jiyong, so sweet and pleased and eager to please him in return! Seunghyun bit his lip so hard he tasted blood as Jiyong’s spectral being filled him and took him in, and without time to even cry out a warning he came.

“Ahh,” murmured Jiyong, his volume right down – Seunghyun knew that meant he was almost out of energy, and no wonder. “I went too fast. But we can do it again in a little while.”

“You’re…joking!” Seunghyun managed, utterly prostrate but smiling as the cloud enfolded him, more like a cuddle now than a caress. “You just gave me head _and_ got inside me at the same time! A man needs a few hours to recover from that…”

“If you hadn’t been out cavorting perhaps you’d have more energy. What were you eating over there? You need a balanced diet if you’re going to keep up with me.”

“Perhaps I’d work on my stamina,” Seunghyun said, “if I knew I could _touch_ you once.” Jiyong went quiet. “I _really_ want to – you’re so lovely, Jiyong, and I…” The air around him turned wistful. “You can make lips, you can make a hand,” added Seunghyun encouragingly. “Maybe if we both work on it you could get more solid – at least enough for me to blow you in return.” Christ, he yearned for it, although he had no idea if Jiyong could actually feel anything like human pleasure, even in his human shape. He put this to the boy, who said:

“Maybe.” He sounded doubtful. “When I touch you I remember what my human body felt like…sort of. And I know what it’s _supposed_ to feel like when _you_ feel things. But I just don’t know if I have that kind of strength; not for long enough.”

“You think it over,” suggested Seunghyun, yawning; he wasn’t too optimistic, but if there was even the possibility…

“You’d better go to sleep,” said Jiyong in his ear, snugging protectively around him. He didn’t sound hopeful either.

“In a minute.” Seunghyun shut his eyes, drowsy but determined not to pass out like he usually did when Jiyong was done rocking his world. Tonight he had his own thinking to do.

* * *

“Say,” asked Seunghyun the next morning while attempting to arrange his desk – Jiyong was a tidy spirit and had a habit of organizing his things in a way that meant he couldn’t find a single one of them – “is this marble important?” He flopped into his chair, still worn out from the previous night, and held up the glass ball Jiyong had dropped on his keyboard. It stared back at him.

“Not really – I just use it to mess with people because it looks like an eye.”

“It does.”

“Why?”

“Oh…my mom keeps asking for it to put in her ‘box of antiques’ – that’s all your haunted stuff, by the way – and I wondered if you’d be upset if she found it. She doesn’t like me keeping it around.”

“It’s not even mine,” said Jiyong, who was visible and sitting cross-legged on Seunghyun’s covers; he’d made the bed first. “Some kid left it here in the Fifties. People think old toys are spooky, though, right?”

“You want it back? Or is it meant to be, like, a present?” Jiyong grinned at the bigger man’s discomfiture – Seunghyun didn’t want to offend if gift-giving was some major symbolic thing in the paranormal realm. “Cos it _is_ …you know, kind of freaky.”

“It’s not a present; I only used it to trip you and give you the creeps.”

“Here, then – catch!” Seunghyun tossed it at the boy; it hit him lightly in the chest and disappeared.

“So cool,” said Seunghyun appreciatively. No, the marble wouldn’t do after all; he’d have to find something else.

He left Jiyong watching _Ghost Detective_ and laughing at Daniel Choi. Like any other teenager he liked to binge TV shows, and only agreed absently when Seunghyun said he was going to do some cleaning round the house. On his way back up some time later Seunghyun spotted his father walk into the living room, shiver, and march right back out again. They could definitely still feel Jiyong in the air, no matter how well he behaved; he just hoped they’d gotten used to it at last.

“It’s a nice day, Ji,” he said under his breath once he was sure his parent had gone. “Quit mocking those poor actors and come outside.”

“In the courtyard?”

“Yeah, I need the sun.” Seunghyun slid his jacket on and stepped out of the front door, Jiyong’s aura following him. They stood there for a while in the bright courtyard, the breeze ruffling his hair pleasantly. “Could the wind, like…blow you away?” he asked, still uncertain as to a ghost’s exact make-up.

“Don’t be silly.”

“Oh. Good.”

“Even if it could, it’d drop me where the house ends.”

“Have you ever _tried_ to leave?” queried Seunghyun carefully.

“Of course,” said Jiyong with a sigh. “For months and months after I died. I can get…this far.” His voice grew more distant, and Seunghyun saw a scuff mark appear in the earth about ten feet from the front gate.

“Why there?”

“That’s where the original property ended. They extended it in the Sixties, and I hoped…well, it didn’t give me any more space: I’m stuck where I was the day I died.”

“Because you’re ‘in’ the house?” He wondered if Jiyong even knew how it worked – if anyone did.

“I guess.”

“I feel like going out,” said Seunghyun after a few minutes of doleful silence from Jiyong. “Wouldn’t you like to go with me?”

“That’s not funny, Seunghyun.” The silvery voice sounded strained.

“Well, wouldn’t you?”

“You know I can’t! And you should’ve told me earlier – then I could have braced myself for another day without you.”

“I don’t want to go without you,” said Seunghyun, folding his arms stubbornly. “I want you to try and come with.” The air around him grew darker with Jiyong’s frustration; he heard a small growl by his ear.

“It _hurts_ , you know,” Jiyong snapped. “Every time I try and cross the boundary – it’s like being punched all over!”

“I didn’t know that.”

“Why would you? You’re alive!” The wind picked up, unnatural. Seunghyun, anxious to avoid being hit with the barbecue again, quickly went on.

“I’m sorry – I didn’t mean to tease you. Jiyong, honey, calm down!” The air stilled but remained heavy, as if waiting for a better apology. “So I was thinking last night,” Seunghyun continued hurriedly. “If you can’t leave because you’re part of the house…what if part of the house could leave?” He dug in his pocket and held out a chip of stone. “Look.”

“…What is it?”

“I was down in the basement this morning,” Seunghyun explained. “I was gonna take something out of my bedroom wall but I wasn’t sure what was original and what’s a rebuild. I figured the foundations _have_ to be original; so I did some digging – and here it is.” He took a step towards the front gate. “I’m going to walk over the line with this,” he said in the silence. “And I want you to come with me.” Jiyong instantly materialized at his side to show the bigger man his terrified expression.

“That…it won’t work!”

“Well, if it doesn’t what’s the worst that can happen? We’ll stay home. I only want to go out if it’s with you, that was the entire point of the exercise.”

“I…” Seunghyun took another step, away from the small pale figure. Jiyong’s eyes were very wide as he stared fixedly at the chip of stone; he looked petrified. Perhaps, thought Seunghyun, he was equally afraid of what would happen if it _did_ work: maybe the idea of freedom was too much for Jiyong to handle after almost a century of captivity.

“Come on,” he coaxed, walking backwards. Deliberately he stepped over the boundary line. Jiyong began to shake and turn transparent. “I want to go on a date,” said Seunghyun with a smile. “So try.” Jiyong turned his gaze from the stone to Seunghyun’s face, his attention so fixed that it felt like a physical weight. In that moment Seunghyun had no idea what he was feeling – the air around him was in a turmoil. Jiyong pressed his lips together and clenched his fists; then he darted across the line.

“Oh…” he said in a little voice, looking back at it. Seunghyun beamed: it worked! He was a genius. Then Jiyong burst into tears.

“Shit,” exclaimed Seunghyun. “Baby, are you okay?! Did it hurt?”

“No!” Jiyong looked back at the house, stupefied. “I’m…I’m _out_.” He laughed, the spectral tears disappearing as if they’d never been. “Oooh, it feels strange!”

“Can you go back and come out by yourself?” Jiyong screwed up his face, disappeared and reappeared.

“Yes!”

“Amazing,” said Seunghyun fondly, and tucked the stone safely in his pocket. “Now let’s see how far we can go.”

“Don’t get too far away from me!” ordered Jiyong, sounding frantic; he vanished, and Seunghyun felt his presence twine itself around him. It was like walking with an invisible duvet.

“Nothing can happen,” he reassured the boy. “If it does, you can just ping back to the house and I’ll find you there.” Jiyong made an anxious noise. “So, where d’you want to go? The city is yours!”

“I…” It was obviously too much of an ask: Jiyong was overwhelmed. “Anywhere,” he said. “Take me on a date. A _date_ ,” he repeated in Seunghyun’s ear, as if he couldn’t believe what he was saying. Seunghyun chuckled.

“My best date it is.” And he strolled away through Bukchon towards the subway station.

Seeing Seoul through Jiyong’s eyes was like seeing it for the first time. It was fortunate that Jiyong could pitch his voice for Seunghyun’s ears alone, or he’d be walking through the city followed by a chorus of astonished exclamations. Jiyong had never ridden a subway train; he’d never done _anything_. So Seunghyun took him on the cheesiest date he could devise – a modern man would have rolled his eyes, but Jiyong was enthralled.

First they went for a walk so the ghost could see what the city looked like above ground. Everything was a wonder: the shops, the high-rise buildings, the traffic signals. Jiyong examined the clothing in the stores with consummate envy, touching them to luxuriate in their textures; Seunghyun’s wardrobe was fairly boring and he hadn’t realized quite how much the boy loved the new fashions. He decided to lump in every date cliché at once and take Jiyong to Lotte World.

“It’s a carnival?” said Jiyong upon seeing the rides. “I never went to one!”

“Sort of. It’s a theme park: rides and food and shops. What d’you want to do first?”

“Everything!”

Jiyong did love everything, but the thing he liked most was watching Seunghyun eat. Under his lover’s instructions the bigger man put away Korean food, hamburgers, donuts, and candy; Seunghyun thought he got off on seeing it. This was all slightly unfortunate because Jiyong also wanted to try the most gravity-defying rides, and everything Seunghyun had eaten was in serious danger of coming back up.

“Ohh, I’m sorry!” said Jiyong in his ear as they staggered off the Gyro Swing. The cloud petted Seunghyun’s head soothingly. “I forgot how fragile you are.”

“‘M not…” Seunghyun hiccupped. “Okay…maybe I am. A stomach isn’t a bottomless pit, Ji!”

They went shopping instead. Jiyong wanted to see if he could smell the perfumes, so Seunghyun emerged from that store wafting a trail like a brothel. Then he decided to ‘update’ his human’s wardrobe. Seunghyun couldn’t tell if Jiyong’s taste was fashion-forward or so many decades back that it had become stylish again, but he ended up with some _interesting_ purchases.

“I’ll never wear these out,” he complained _sotto voce_.

“Then you can wear them just for me.” Seunghyun jumped as his ass was clasped in a firm, invisible grip. “Quit it,” he muttered, but half-heartedly. “Have you had enough fun yet? It’s getting dark.”

“No,” announced Jiyong. “I want you to eat Chinese for dinner!” Seunghyun groaned but did as he was told.

By the time he’d refueled Seunghyun was starting to wonder if Jiyong was pushing himself too hard; did it cost him more energy to hold himself together away from the house? The boy assured him he was fine and not ready to go home, but it seemed to Seunghyun that his voice was quieter than before, the blanket around him less distinct.

“Please,” said Jiyong. Seunghyun didn’t take much persuading.

“All right. One more date spot.” He decided to take Jiyong to Namsan Tower.

Jiyong was initially distracted by the delights of Myeongdong; then he saw the lights of the Tower in the distance and gasped. Seunghyun headed for the cable car and they piled in. There was an odd moment on their way up: a little girl in their car kept staring at Seunghyun, eyes huge, and wouldn’t look away even when he stuck his tongue out at her. Her mother eventually noticed and apologized, but it was a slightly unsettling feeling.

“ _Mudang_ ,” Jiyong whispered very quietly. “That’s going to happen if you keep taking me out: there are people who can see the unseen!” Seunghyun was glad to get up the Tower; he was coming to realize that there were some very weird things in the world, and for all he knew they’d been sitting next to him every time he got on a bus.

He stood on one of the viewing platforms and let Jiyong gaze out over Seoul. The boy was silent for a long time, his awareness on the vista of lights.

“…It’s so big,” he murmured at last; he sounded awed and a little melancholy. “So much has _happened_ , Seunghyun, and I never got to see it – I should have been around to see the world change. But I’ve missed it all.”

“I know,” said Seunghyun under his breath so the crowd of other tourists didn’t think he was unhinged. “So much was taken away from you – and I’m sorry. Still,” he added, thinking on his history lessons, “you missed a lot of dark times too. And now you’re here and past them, and you’ll see the future!”

“With you,” agreed Jiyong. Seunghyun beamed.

Naturally he couldn’t leave the Tower without the obligatory date-night ritual: buying a lock to fasten on the Locks of Love fence. It was the corniest thing imaginable, but when he told Jiyong about it the ghost declared nothing could be more romantic. Seunghyun crouched in a corner, shielding the lock with his body so no-one could see the pen floating on its own as Jiyong wrote his name alongside his lover’s. Seunghyun clipped it to the fence beside the other couples, all of them taking selfies together. As he watched them he felt a hand slip into his, fingers twining with his own: perhaps envious, Jiyong was using his remaining energy for this invisible moment of intimacy. Seunghyun squeezed the hand and turned to smile at him – but of course there was no-one there.

“You look sort of crazy,” Jiyong teased him in his private ear. Then, apologetic: “If I wasn’t so worn-out I could appear and we could take a couple picture. That would be pretty interesting.” Seunghyun wondered how in the hell that photo would come out. He gave an affable shrug.

“If I stood here holding hands with a see-through schoolboy I’d be getting even more weird looks.” Jiyong chuckled. There was a peaceful pause, a moment of sheer affection and companionship. Then Jiyong said softly:

“…I love you.” Seunghyun had to duck his head to hide the smile, it was that bright: people really _would_ think he was a loon. He hadn’t sought it but it was exactly how he had dreamed this day would end – it was what he’d been dreaming every night. What had his life become, he thought ecstatically, that a confession from a dead creature could light up his world like this?

“You know I love _you_ ,” he murmured in return.

“Of course I do.” Air brushed past his ear. “I’m free, Seunghyun: because I’m with you.”

“Time to go home?” asked Seunghyun; the grip on his hand was becoming faint – he felt faint himself at this momentous exchange and what it might mean for the future. Jiyong hummed in agreement, wrapped around him, and they went back down the mountain entwined.

For all the amazement of being out in the world, Jiyong radiated relief when they reentered the hanok. Seunghyun could almost physically feel him put himself back together as he took charge, undressing the bigger man, bringing him digestion pills, putting him to bed. Seunghyun was very happy to be pampered: now every interaction between them seemed to spill over with love. You couldn’t _feel_ like this with another human, he thought. Or perhaps he was wrong and it wasn’t a ghostly thing at all – perhaps it was just Jiyong. Seunghyun couldn’t spare a thought now for pretty girls or hot living guys: he only wanted _this_. There was just one thing that might make it even better.

“Seunghyun,” came Jiyong’s voice, the cloud rolling over him lazily to tuck the covers around him. “I decided something.”

“Oh?” That sounded alarming.

“You’ve tried so hard for me,” said Jiyong quietly. “I want to do something for you: I want you to touch me.”

“Now?!” He couldn’t believe it; the thought made him _ache_ , and was exactly what he’d been fantasizing about.

“Not now; I don’t know how long it’ll take, or if it will work. But I want to feel you holding me.” For a second Jiyong appeared, monochrome and weightless beside him. “Even if it’s just for one night – I want to be _real_.”

Seunghyun went to sleep with everything crossed that Jiyong would succeed.

* * *

“Today?” asked Seunghyun, waking up and bouncing out of bed to address the room around him; he’d dreamed about having Jiyong in his arms. The invisible presence caressed his cheek momentarily before Jiyong laughed and said:

“No, not today. Not tomorrow or the next day, not if we want to have a shot at this working!” Seunghyun heard a sigh. “You won’t even see me: I have to build up a huge store of energy – I’ve never done anything like this before.”

“How am I supposed to last that long?!”

“You’ve got hands, haven’t you?” Jiyong told him pertly. “And it’s as much a hardship for me as you: there’s nothing in the world like touching you.”

“All right,” said Seunghyun, pulling a face of exaggerated gloom.

“In fact, you should go out. The less we interact the more ready we’ll be.” The bigger man blinked: Jiyong had never suggested they spend time apart before. This really must be serious business.

“If you’re sure. But an advance warning: if this _doesn’t_ work, I’m gonna explode.”

“Trust me, I’m scared too!”

“I love you,” said Seunghyun, and felt the room glow. “Focus on _that_.” And he mooched away to call Daesung.

It was _hard_ – no pun intended – Seunghyun complained through the course of the next week. Not so much the sudden curtailment of his sex life, although that was no picnic after what he’d gotten used to; no, it was not having Jiyong constantly beside him, talking to him, enriching his every moment. He was aware of Jiyong’s presence when he was in the house because, as the boy said, he was part of it; but it wasn’t _communication_ as they’d become accustomed to. It was more akin to the way things had been when Seunghyun first began living there, only without the mystery. Jiyong would come to him at bedtime, invisible, surround him briefly with a cloud hug and ask about his day, but that was as far as things went.

“Did you have fun with your friends?”

“I mean…comparatively,” said Seunghyun, who’d endured an afternoon of Daesung quizzing him about his spiritual state and asking him to come to church. He was grateful his friends gave a shit about him, of course, but he couldn’t say it was relaxing. “What did _you_ do?”

“Oh, you know. Watched your father cook. Existed.” Seunghyun had guessed as much: his dad had been twitchy when he came in for dinner.

“Is this really helping?” he asked, trying not to whine – he was the adult here, he reminded himself! “I miss seeing you.” As if to compensate, his dreams had become extremely vivid, erotic, and sometimes frightening: that vision of Jiyong’s death was always lurking there, unwilling to be entirely forgotten. Seunghyun needed a distraction.

“I miss you too.” It was all very well for Jiyong, though: he could, and did, watch Seunghyun every moment he was home. “But I’m getting stronger. Soon you’ll be able to feel it. And then…” The air shimmered with their shared desire. “If you can just _kiss_ me it’ll all be worth it.” It would, agreed Seunghyun fervently; but could it work?

Three days later and Jiyong was right: he _could_ feel it. The hanok was a tinder-box of energy, doorknobs and faucets giving Seunghyun and his parents static shocks and headaches. His mom and dad were stressed and exhausted again without knowing why: Jiyong was on his best behavior as far as deliberate phenomena went, but he couldn’t control his feelings or the buildup of power. To Seunghyun, in the know, it felt like sexual frustration incarnate.

“How much longer?” he begged Jiyong. The very idea of their goal was causing serious damage to his self-restraint, right when restraint was most needed. Every time he brushed against one of the walls his hair stood on end with the energy that crackled through the house.

“Ahh,” came the ghost’s voice from a distance. “Try not to do that, Seunghyun, I can’t have you touch me just now…”

“ _Fuck_.” Right: Jiyong must be spread out all over this house. Seunghyun retreated to his desk and toyed with the idea of surfing for porn; only that wouldn’t be fair, would it? “How much longer?” he asked again. There was a pause.

“You’re going out with your friends tonight, yes?”

“Yeah.” Though it had been Jiyong’s bright idea to get his lover out of the house to avoid distractions, Seunghyun knew it made him crabby – and with the atmosphere in the hanok the way it was, one spark of temper and the whole thing could go up in a conflagration of supernatural shenanigans. “With my seminar group.”

“What’ll you have for dinner?” Jiyong always wanted to know.

“Meat: an all-you-can-eat buffet.”

“Eat _everything_ ,” the spirit instructed eagerly, as if the idea was positively erotic. “Then you can tell me about it.”

“And then?!” demanded Seunghyun. He caught his breath and hurriedly crossed his legs as Jiyong said:

“…And then I’ll try. Tonight.”

Seunghyun had almost no memory of his class get-together, he was that giddy with excitement; he felt like he had as a teenager before his first time, only far more nervous. Why, he couldn’t say: he and Jiyong had already done everything sexually possible within their limitations – but the very thought of being able to touch Jiyong, if just for a moment, made him a very stupid dinner companion. He silently ate and drank as Jiyong had ordered while the party went on around him. By the time he rolled home he was so full he wasn’t sure he’d be able to make love to _anything_ ; and perhaps that was what the ghost was banking on, that if they failed he wouldn’t feel so bad.

His parents were in bed when he got in: just being in the house was wearing these days, with the air around them so full of tension. Seunghyun kicked his shoes off, cringed as they clattered in the entranceway, and dashed up the stairs.

“ _Jiyong_!” he whispered, pausing to give his stomach a soothing rub: definitely not on his best form right now. He peeled off his sweater, staring about as if it was his birthday and he knew he was being thrown a surprise party; but there was nothing in the empty bedroom to give him encouragement. Not that’d expected a rose petal path to the bed or anything, but…ahh, if this didn’t work he was going to have to engage in some serious self-pleasure. “Ji, are you here?”

There was a sound like an enormous indrawn breath – and suddenly there Jiyong was by the closet door. Seunghyun peered at him, neat and pale as always, until he registered – joy of joys – that he _couldn’t see through him_.

“…Did it work?” he asked in awe. Jiyong’s small face wore an expression of intense concentration, as though he was balancing a glass of water atop his head.

“Check,” the boy said, not moving. Seunghyun took an unsteady breath and strode forward. When he neared Jiyong he paused, exactly as he had the first night they’d communicated – the night Jiyong had scared him so badly. He wasn’t frightened this time, only full enough of anticipation that his hands were trembling. He reached out slowly, and touched Jiyong’s cheek.

“ _Ahhh_.” They spoke simultaneously, Jiyong’s eyes fluttering closed as Seunghyun’s fingertips made contact; Seunghyun forgot all about his stomach as he was hit with a wave of triumph. The ghost exhaled in profound relief, and maybe something more: the sensation of being touched after almost one hundred years. For Seunghyun there was nothing but wonder: it had _worked_! Jiyong’s skin was chilly and smooth but it _felt_ like skin, flesh and fine bones beneath it. Seunghyun took the final step forward, cupped that lovely face in both hands and kissed him, hearing a tiny human noise of amazement as Jiyong’s lips parted. For an instant the boy seemed to desolidify beneath his hands, and he whispered against Jiyong’s mouth:

“Focus, baby, stay with me!” The body in his clasp stabilized, and then Jiyong was kissing him, tongue slipping past his teeth and arms clinging to him as if Seunghyun was the only thing keeping him whole. Seunghyun moaned and slid his fingers into almost-human hair; it wasn’t perfectly correct, softer than a normal person’s hair, but it was Jiyong’s and he could _touch_ it. Jiyong was crushing himself closer, kissing Seunghyun as if he’d never be able to again. “You taste…so familiar,” murmured the bigger man, a tremulous smile on his lips as he nuzzled Jiyong’s perfect nose with his own; that familiarity, it was like every corny cliched song: as though they were meant to be.

“Oh…” Jiyong laughed and he felt the boy’s carefully constructed breath against his face; his voice still sounded silver. “That’s because I taste of _you_.” He laid his head on Seunghyun’s shoulder, running both hands up his back. “I have no memory of how I tasted; I only know what shape I was. I borrowed almost everything else from you.”

“You’re very clever, Ji,” Seunghyun told him after a moment’s surprised thought. He slid an arm around Jiyong’s waist, examined the fabric of his uniform jacket: it felt real, and almost precisely like his own jacket hanging on the desk chair. Jiyong had rebuilt himself out of the sensations of his lover. That was eerie, but very touching. “I love it – and I love _you_ , the way you sound, the way you look; that’s all yours! So can I see?” Carefully he thumbed open the button at Jiyong’s high collar, setting his lips to the skin beneath; he couldn’t sense a pulse, but that was probably too much detail to be expected. Jiyong moaned softly against his ear and Seunghyun felt himself start to harden.

“Wait,” murmured Jiyong; there was a shimmer of air, and the next thing Seunghyun knew his hands were cupping bare skin, cooler and more like satin than his own but undeniably _there_. He drew back enough to inhale in appreciation at the sight of Jiyong’s slender body, colorless but whole and exquisite. “It takes less energy to just unmake them,” the spirit explained. Seunghyun didn’t care: it would have been fun to strip him slowly, but anything that gave him a minute longer with Jiyong in his arms was a blessing. He tucked his head into the crook of Jiyong’s neck, dragged his hands down the slim waist and felt the shiver that passed in his wake. Jiyong seemed as sensitive there as he was himself, and he brushed his thumbs lingeringly over the boy’s hips to feel it again.

“Are you ticklish here because you always were?” he asked, amused when Jiyong squirmed against him. “Or because I am?”

“…Don’t know,” breathed Jiyong, kissing his way down Seunghyun’s shoulder. “It just feels…I just _feel_ , Seunghyun, and I haven’t for so long!”

“See what else you can feel,” suggested the taller man hopefully. Jiyong’s fingers smoothed over his belly, cold as ever but he was used to that, and unbuttoned his jeans to gently clasp his half-hard cock. This Seunghyun had experienced before; but now he could look down and _see_ it, those slender digits curled around him, Jiyong’s avid expression as the flesh stiffened under his touch. “Can you feel aroused this way?” Seunghyun asked, a little hesitant: Jiyong had never been able to give him a clear answer on just _how_ human he could become. Jiyong bit his lip and parted his legs slightly to let Seunghyun look at him: he was hardening in time with the bigger man, copying his reactions. With complete delight Seunghyun reached out and enclosed Jiyong’s erection in one hand – how long had he been aching to do this?!

“Does it feel good?”

“It should, yes?” said Jiyong, a tremor in his voice. “I sort of remember that…”

“Oh, _yes_.” The boy gasped as Seunghyun sank to his knees, took Jiyong’s hips in a firm grip, and began kissing a path up his thigh.

“Then…it does.” Jiyong groaned when Seunghyun took him eagerly into his mouth. “It _does_. I…I remember how much you like when I do this for you!”

“Trust me,” grinned Seunghyun, coming up for air, “it feels _amazing_. Although you’re probably a damn sight better at it than me…” After another delicious minute he added: “Everything you do to me feels good, Jiyong – I hope it’ll be the same for you.”

“…Take me to bed,” ordered Jiyong before another minute had passed. “Quick!”

“Are you running out of power?”

“Not yet – I just want you to touch me, everywhere you dreamed of. I want to feel your weight while I still have the energy!”

Seunghyun didn’t need telling twice: he sprang to his feet, scooped Jiyong up in his arms – he weighed less than a man of his size could possibly weigh, but that was alright – and rushed him to the bed, kicking the rest of his own clothes off along the way. They dissolved into a panting, giggling tangle of limbs as Seunghyun made sure to stroke him, suck him, squeeze him every place he had wanted to. He kissed Jiyong’s ears, dipped his tongue into his navel, played with his pretty toes. Biting gently at Jiyong’s left nipple he realized the boy _had_ tried to inject some color into himself: the nub was a very pale pink, as were his lips, and his black eyes had a faint tawny tinge. He looked like the under-wash on a watercolor painting, so very delicate; but he felt strong and eager for everything Seunghyun had to offer him.

“Seunghyun,” whispered Jiyong, whose breath had become uneven in an echo of Seunghyun’s own. “I want to feel you inside me…!” The bigger man froze for a moment, then moved up his body to kiss him.

“Of course! If…if it’s what you want.” He didn’t know why it felt so much more momentous to fuck Jiyong than it had when the pleasurable cloud was inside _him_. Perhaps because Jiyong in life had never had a real lover. It felt like an honor and a great responsibility. Before he could declare any of this Jiyong had rolled over beneath him, exposing the lovely line of his spine and buttocks. Seunghyun kissed the nape of his neck, massaging his shoulders and down to his ass, nudging Jiyong’s legs apart to slide a finger between them. A quiver went down Jiyong’s spine. “Oh. Hang on,” said Seunghyun. “I gotta get some…don’t go anywhere!” he instructed. “And I _do_ mean that.” He soothed Jiyong’s questioning noise and hurried to the bathroom for lotion.

“What’s that?” asked Jiyong anxiously as he coated his fingers. Seunghyun lay down beside him and tried to look confident.

“See, you’ve done a really good job modeling yourself on me,” he explained. “You feel…pretty much the way I feel – y’know, inside. And when you put fingers, or something else, inside a human, it needs to…well, glide. Else it won’t be comfortable for you.” Jiyong opened his mouth, looking appalled. “No, it’s different when you do it!” Seunghyun reassured him. “When we make love you feel like silk inside me, or honey, or whatever – it’s indescribable – and there’s almost no friction. You’ve never hurt me!”

“Ah. Good,” muttered Jiyong in a small voice, and settled down on his stomach.

“I’m gonna be really careful with you.” Seunghyun pressed his forefinger inside Jiyong’s tight hole again – was this really what he felt like himself? he wondered. It was pretty damn incredible. Jiyong lay there unbothered until Seunghyun explained that what he was doing to him should probably feel nice; then, to his amazement and gratification, Jiyong _did_ seem to find it nice: he relaxed, opened up, and hardened fully against the bedclothes. “I love how you sound,” Seunghyun whispered into his hair. Jiyong sighed, pushing back against his fingers. Seunghyun made a mental note to give the boy an anatomy video to watch later: he didn’t think he had enough know-how to explain the ins and outs of the prostate and male pleasure himself, but it might help Jiyong understand why and to what extent he could feel good inside.

“ _Now_ ,” said Jiyong into the pillow, and not before time: Seunghyun was so hard he thought he might lose his mind just putting it in. He hoped Jiyong could stay solid a little bit longer!

“Turn over.” He spread Jiyong out on his back and smoothed both palms up his thighs, pushing them up and apart. “I want to see your face for every moment of this.” Jiyong beamed at him, visibly anxious even after Seunghyun’s assurances.

“Please, I want you!” Seunghyun leaned down and kissed him, applying more lotion as he did so. Jiyong’s arms slipped around his neck, then slid down to his buttocks to guide him in; his hands were tense and trembling. As he entered Jiyong Seunghyun’s vision wavered, or perhaps Jiyong really _was_ wavering, falling in and out of sight as his nerves built; Seunghyun could feel static in the air, even where Jiyong’s ass gripped the head of his cock, a pleasant but strange sensation that he knew meant his lover was nervous. He braced one hand on the pillow beside the boy’s head, gripped his hip with the other, and slowly pushed in.

“Ahhh…!” Jiyong’s face changed and he cried out in a voice that stopped Seunghyun and sent him into a panic: Jiyong didn’t looked shocked at the new sensation but his expression was contorted with pain and abrupt fear, his eyes going wide and distant.

“Jiyong! Baby, what’s wrong?!” At the sound of his voice Jiyong’s gaze came back to him; the ghost was clinging to Seunghyun’s arms, but his look of terror gradually subsided and he said:

“Hurts. That’s all, I knew it would – I thought I was ready but…”

“It’s not supposed to hurt,” Seunghyun told him, horrified. If it did it was because Jiyong’s mind was _telling_ him it did – but why would it do that after all their preparation?! He tried to pull out but Jiyong wound both legs around him and stopped him, clinging to him as if he couldn’t bear to be left alone. “If it’s hurting then I’m doing it wrong!”

“It hurt before,” said Jiyong. “When I…” He turned his head aside, composing himself, and in the same instant Seunghyun was hit by that terrible vision, the one he’d almost managed to push aside: of Jiyong and what had happened to him in the minutes before he died. He retched, clapping a hand across his mouth as Jiyong’s perfect body, the one he’d made so much effort to recreate, was overlaid with the ruined one that had been all that was left once his mother’s lover was done with him.

“ _Jiyong_.” Seunghyun got himself under control and rolled them over so they were side by side and he could look into Jiyong’s eyes. “I’m not him,” he muttered, stroking the boy’s hair. “And it will never feel like that with me.” Jiyong nodded slowly. “You’ve got all the power,” Seunghyun reminded him, setting Jiyong’s small hand to his throat. “You could stop me just like that! Or just _disappear_.”

“I know, but…”

“And I’m telling you that sex should feel _good_ – it should never hurt you. It’s the memory that’s hurting you. And you don’t have to do it because you want to please me in any case. I love you and I want to be close to you, but you don’t need to _endure_ anything for me.”

“…You’re right,” said Jiyong after a long minute in which Seunghyun semi-successfully pushed away the image of his lover’s death. “I was trying to feel like a real human – and that was one of the few things I can remember.”

“Humanity might be overrated.” Jiyong gave him wobbly smile. “But if you’re going to take cues from humans, take them from me: everything _we_ do together is heaven. Now, how about we do something else, if you still feel like it? I can suck you, or use my fingers, whatever you want. Or we can stop.”

“No. Make love to me like I do you.” Jiyong wrapped his thighs around the bigger man, sinking against him. “Just…while you’re doing it tell me what _you_ feel when _I’m_ doing it. That way I can learn a different lesson.” He looked so entreating that Seunghyun would have obeyed even if he hadn’t wanted to; but he did, and once the traumatic scene had been pushed out of his mind he found Jiyong’s proximity soon made him hard again. In fact he was almost dizzy with arousal as Jiyong straddled him, laid himself atop his body and sank onto him, filling himself up as Seunghyun told him in a shaking voice and in painstaking detail exactly how good it felt to be fucked.

Jiyong seemed stronger now he was in control, and Seunghyun was grateful: the pleasure of Jiyong’s not-quite-human body was so great that he could scarcely think straight, and it was all he could do to control himself. He ran his hands greedily up and down Jiyong’s back, over his thighs and ass while the boy dictated the pace; every place his fingers connected caused a tingle, a small ecstatic firing of electricity. His head was swimming and Jiyong was constricting around him, a wondering smile lighting up his pale face, and Seunghyun simply couldn’t hold on: clutching Jiyong to him he came like he never had before. Jiyong made an astonished face but he barely saw it – the room was spinning around him. He wanted to ask if Jiyong had reached an orgasm, if he even understood what that felt like, but when he opened his mouth no sound came out.

“…Seunghyun?!” Jiyong’s face appeared to turn transparent, or maybe it was his own fading vision. Dimly Seunghyun registered a small hand slapping his cheek; the room whirled faster. Then everything vanished.

* * *

“…Darling. Seunghyun! Oh my god, wake up!” Seunghyun came to out of the blackness and had no idea how much time had passed. He opened his eyes with an effort – even breathing was an effort – and saw nothing but the familiar raftered ceiling. “Wake up!” cried Jiyong’s disembodied voice again. He blinked; the air around him was turbulent and panicked.

“I…I’m here,” he managed. Something thrust itself into his vision; to Seunghyun’s befuddled brain it looked like a dark, fat stick of wood.

“Eat this, quick!” He focused his eyes and saw it was a loaf of the fancy artisanal seed bread his mom insisted on buying. It shook itself in front of his nose. “Seunghyun!” He didn’t have the strength to hold it, but he obediently opened his mouth. Jiyong guided the bread in and he tore off a bite, then another. Suddenly he was ravenous as he had never been in his life before: he snatched the loaf out of the air and worried at it with his teeth, cramming his mouth with it. Before two minutes were up there were only crumbs left; Seunghyun lay on his back and panted, and gradually the world came back into focus.

“Er…what the hell happened just now?” He sensed Jiyong hovering around him, radiating worry and shame.

“You passed out. It’s my fault – I should’ve stopped it but it felt so good, and _you_ were feeling good touching me and…I got carried away.”

“You ran out of energy?” The invisible spirit made an affirming sound.

“It’s exactly what I was afraid of: I could have killed you!”

“What d’you mean?” Seunghyun sat up and put out a hand. “Look, I feel much better now, don’t freak out.” There was a long silence.

“Why do you think I asked you to go see your friends this past week?” Jiyong asked.

“Because you were storing energy and you didn’t want me to distract you.”

“There’s that,” said Jiyong carefully. “But that’s not all. Think back: have you ever felt tired after we spent time together? Especially after I’ve touched you or talked to you for a long time?”

“Well, yeah. But that’s natural, isn’t it? The psychological stress of communing with the spirits,” said Seunghyun, laughing to put him at ease. “I don’t mind. And I always fall asleep after we fool around – I’m a guy!”

“That’s not why.” Jiyong appeared at the end of the bed, almost transparent and hands clasped in front of him. “It’s because…where do you imagine my energy _comes_ from?” Seunghyun frowned. “It comes from humans,” stated Jiyong angrily. “From _you_. Every time we talk I take something from you; every time we sleep together I feed on you. It’s the only way I have the strength.” For a protracted moment Seunghyun stared at him.

“So when I was away…”

“I didn’t want to make you weak,” explained Jiyong, not meeting his eyes. “I was selfish: I wanted you strong for me tonight. So I drew on your parents, but I guess it wasn’t enough.”

“That’s why they’ve been so weird all week? They’re literally drained?”

“Exactly. When there aren’t any humans around…well, I told you. I just lie dormant, and that’s the way I liked it. If I want to move or speak or appear, I need people.” Seunghyun blew out his cheeks slowly; this was a new angle on the haunting phenomenon. He hadn’t even thought of it. Jiyong was saying ghosts were _parasites_. But he said he’d never killed anyone, so…

“So what do we need to do?” he asked. “To keep both our strength up so we can do this again?” Jiyong’s head snapped up; he looked astonished.

“You’re not angry?!”

“Not if there’s a solution. Everything needs energy to move; I just thought yours came from the electricity or something. If it comes from me? Fine, so long as I can recuperate.” He sighed. “I don’t know why you didn’t tell me before; then I wouldn’t have scared us both tonight.”

“It’s so invasive,” mumbled Jiyong. “It makes me sound like a monster.”

“No it doesn’t. So come on: how do we fix it?”

“It’s easy,” Jiyong told him, meeting his gaze at last. “You need to eat a lot.” Seunghyun burst out laughing: this foolish little spirit!

“ _That’s_ why you’re always asking me to stuff myself? Why you always check what I ate when I went out?” Jiyong nodded, lips pursed. “You dimwit! You should’ve _told_ me! I’m not poor, Jiyong – if gorging myself means I can have the cutest boyfriend in existence, bring on the competitive eating!”

“You don’t think I’m a vampire?”

“I wouldn’t care if you were. Come here.” Seunghyun stretched his arms out, and after a few seconds Jiyong floated up the bed and into them. He couldn’t feel the boy like he had earlier, just the cloud, but it was enough to be able to reassure him. “So, how much carb-loading do I need to do for us to have a night like this again?”

“Umm…maybe three times what you’d normally eat every day?” Seunghyun whistled.

“Say six thousand calories. And you promise you’ll burn it off and keep me trim?”

“I have to be careful not to make you _faint_ again!” said Jiyong with a reproachful look.

“Sorry. I’m not making a joke. It’s just…you’re so cute, Jiyong; and I _do_ love you. You think a little thing like this would stop me?”

“You’ve done so much for me,” Jiyong told him, and the cloud brushed his cheek. “You give me awareness, you showed me freedom and love – I didn’t want to take too much.”

“Well, right back at you: you showed me there’s a whole other world beyond the mundane, you opened my mind so wide I’m surprised it can fit in my head. And even if you hadn’t done all that, I’d have your love.” He turned to Jiyong and was rewarded with a spectral kiss.

“So…we go on?” asked Jiyong, his voice full of hopeful echoes.

“We do, as long as you want it: for as long as I live, and with any luck beyond.” Seunghyun pointed to his desk, where the chip of foundation stone was sitting with a cord looped through it. “No matter what happens to this house, some part of it will survive – and so will you. We can go anywhere: you can be solid and _feel_ the world! We’ll walk through European cities, we’ll swim in the ocean, we’ll climb mountains. I promise you: you’ll have everything.”

“ _Seunghyun_ …” For just long enough Jiyong was corporeal again, mouth on his, arms wrapped around him before he dissolved back into air. Seunghyun leaned against the pillow and grinned. Six thousand calories: he was going to need a part-time job. Either that or come out to his parents that he was dating a ghost and required triple meals so they could get handsy. Whatever happened, it didn’t matter: thanks to Jiyong he was going to live a life that was absolutely unique, a life full of strange forces and philosophical wonder. And he was going to get _laid_. Still smiling, wrapped in Jiyong’s lethal and loving presence, he fell asleep again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And there you have it! If you enjoyed it let me know :)  
> Thanks for reading!


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